tihvavy  of  t:he  trheolo^ical  ^tminary 

PRINCETON  •  NEW  JERSEY 

PURCHASED  BY  THE 
HAMILL  MISSIONARY  FUND 


BV3445T5419I2 

Pieters,  Albertus,  1869- 

Mission  problems  in  Japan,  theoretical  an 

praciical;  leclures  delivered  before  Ihe  W< 


MISSION  PROBLEMS 
IN  JAPAN 

THEORETICAL  AND  PRACTICAL         

LECTURES  DELIVERED  BEFORE       /' 
THE   WESTERN  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY         NOV   ''21     1! 
HOLLAND,  MICHIGAN  V -^v 


BY    THE 
V 


REV.  ALBERTUS    PIETERS,  M.  A 

TWENTY  YEARS  A   MEMBER  OF  THE 
REFORMED    CHURCH    MISSION   IN  JAPAN 


New  York 
THE  BOARD  OF  PUBLICATION 

25  East  Twenty-second  Street 


Copyright,  xgxa,  by  the 

Board  OF  Publication  of  the  Reformed  Church 

IN  America 


INTRODUCTORY  NOTE. 

No  one  can  proceed  far  in  the  perusal  of  these  Lec- 
tures without  discovering  that  they  constitute  a  vigor- 
ous and  a  strong  discussion  of  some  of  the  most  im- 
portant of  missionary  questions.  They  are  also  a  his- 
torical presentation  of  the  development  of  these  prob- 
lems in  Japan  by  one  who  has  had  a  personal  and  a 
controlling  share  in  the  issues.  The  discussion  is  there- 
fore vitalized  by  personal  experience  and  the  interest 
is  thoroughly  aroused. 

The  author  would  not  claim  that  all  who  read  must 
give  assent  to  his  arguments,  nor  does  the  writer  of 
this  introductory  note  find  himself  in  entire  agree- 
ment with  all  the  positions  taken.  But  all  who  read 
will  find  themselves  affected  by  the  strength  of  the 
arguments  presented  and  enriched  by  the  information 
given. 

This  is  in  a  very  real  sense  a  strong  book  written 
by  one  who  knows  the  conditions  and  has  felt  the  en- 
vironment amidst  which  he  has  rendered  an  important 
missionary  service.  As  such  it  carries  its  own  com- 
mendation. 

W.  I.  Chamberlain. 
New  York,  April,  1912. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 

Page 

Introductory  Note 3 

I     The  Missionary  Purpose 7 

II  The  Conditions  Under  Which  the  Mis- 
sionary Purpose  is  to  be  AccompHshed 
in  Japan  31 

III  The  Organization  of  the  Christian  Church, 

the  First  Great  Step  in  the  Accomplish- 
ment of  Our  Purpose 58 

IV  The  Mission  and  the  Native  Church 84 

V  The  Evangelistic  Work  After  the  Estab- 
lishment of  the  Church 108 

VI     The  Educational  Work,  Essential  to  the 

Permanence  of  Results 134 

VII     What  God  is  Doing  in  the  Far  East 164 


MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

CHAPTER  I. 
The  Missionary  Purpose. 

The  subject  of  the  present  lecture  is  the  purpose 
of  foreign  missions  in  general.  What  is  our  work  de- 
signed to  accomplish? 

This  question  is  fundamental  to  the  understanding 
of  all  missionary  problems.  If  properly  answered,  the 
reply  will  enable  us  to  understand  the  specific  charac- 
ter of  missions  as  distinct  from  other  activities  of  the 
church.  It  will  also  help  us  to  draw  the  line  between 
Domestic  Missions  and  Foreign  Missions.  It  will  in- 
dicate to  us  the  difference  between  legitimate  and  il- 
legitimate methods,  and  especially  will  it  furnish  us 
with  the  means  of  measuring  our  progress  and  decid- 
ing when  our  task  is  accomplished. 

Our  starting  point  in  this  inquiry  is  the  command  of 
our  Lord  to  go  into  all  the  world  and  preach  the  gos- 
pel to  every  creature.  This  is  a  great  missionary  text, 
and  has  been  well  called  "the  Marching  Orders  of  the 
Church."  It  is,  however,  much  more  than  a  mission- 
ary text.  It  includes  the  whole  activity  of  the  Chris- 
tian church,  in  all  ages,  in  all  countries,  and  under  all 
conditions.  There  is  nothing  to  which  the  church  may 
legitimately  set  her  hand  that  is  not  in  obedience  to 
this  command.  The  work  at  home,  no  less  than  the 
work  abroad,  is  included  in  it.  What  is  stated  here  is 
the  whole,  of  which  the  missionary  work  is  but  a  part. 
All  replies  to  our  question  that  are  merely  paraphrases 


8  MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

of  the  great  commission,  such  as  that  it  is  our  purpose 
to  make  Jesus  Christ  known  to  the  world,  to  save  the 
souls  of  men,  to  preach  the  gospel  to  every  creature, 
to  evangelize  the  world,  etc.,  fail  to  be  satisfactory 
statements  of  the  aim  of  missions  because  they  are  not 
sufficiently  distinctive. 

To  find  such  a  distinctive  statement,  we  must  divide 
the  work  of  the  church  of  Christ  into  two  parts,  the 
activity  of  the  church  within  herself,  and  her  activity 
without  her  own  bounds.  If,  now,  we  bear  in  mind 
our  Reformed  position  in  regard  to  the  visible  church, 
the  line  of  demarkation  will  become  tolerably  clear. 
The  church  consists  of  believers  and  their  children,  of 
all  such  as  are  included  in  the  covenant  and  are  en- 
titled to  baptism  as  the  sign  and  seal  of  that  covenant. 
Without  are  those  who  either  have  never  had  any  re- 
lation to  the  church,  i.  e.  heathen,  Mohammedans,  and 
Jews,  or  who  have  deliberately  or  negligently  renounced 
such  relation,  as  seen  in  the  irreligious  communities 
and  classes  in  Christian  lands.  To  this  class  belong 
also  those  organizations,  if  any,  which  bear  the  Chris- 
tian name,  but  are  devoid  of  the  characteristics  which 
distinguish  the  true  church  of  God. 

Within  the  bounds  of  the  visible  church,  varied,  nu- 
merous, and  important  activities  claim  her  attention. 
The  public  worship  must  be  maintained,  believers  are 
to  be  edified  in  the  faith,  erring  members  must  be  la- 
bored with,  the  sick  are  to  be  visited,  children  must  be 
instructed,  in  Sunday-schools  or  in  catechetical  classes, 
young  people  must  be  trained  to  Christian  service 
through  various  agencies.  Christian  literature  must  be 


THE  MISSIONARY  PURPOSE  9 

produced  and  distributed,  the  charity  of  the  brethren 
must  be  wisely  dispensed,  schools  and  colleges  must 
educate  the  youth,  seminaries  must  train  the  future 
ministry,  churches  unable  to  bear  their  own  burdens 
must  be  assisted,  and  in  numberless  other  ways  the 
principles  of  religion  must  be  applied  to  the  life  of  the 
individual,  of  the  family,  and  of  the  community.  All 
of  this  internal  activity,  varied  and  important  as  it  is, 
finds  its  inspiration  in  those  pregnant  words :  *'Teach- 
ing  them  to  observe  all  things,  whatsoever  I  have  com- 
manded you."  In  round  numbers,  nine-tenths  of  the 
financial  strength,  and  much  more  than  that  propor- 
tion of  the  time  and  talent  of  the  church  are  devoted  to 
this  "ad  intra"  labor.  By  means  of  it  the  church  is 
sustaining  and  nourishing  her  own  life. 

In  distinct  contrast  with  this  is  the  work  of  the 
church  in  which  she  turns  herself  to  those  who  are 
without,  sending  her  messengers  into  the  highways  and 
by-ways  and  extending  to  all  a  loving  invitation  to 
come  into  the  fold.  This  is  the  activity  "ad  extra" 
and  this  alone  is  in  any  proper  sense  missionary  work. 
To  be  sure,  the  internal  and  external  labors  of  the 
church,  although  thus  distinguished  in  thought,  are  fre- 
quently commingled  in  practice.  Many  a  pastor  de- 
votes much  time  and  strength  to  reaching  irreligious 
persons  and  classes  in  the  community  where  his  church 
is  located,  and  many  a  missionary  busies  himself  with 
the  internal  affairs  of  the  church  in  the  days  of  her  in- 
fancy. Nevertheless  this  distinction  between  the  two 
kinds  of  effort  is  fundamental,  and  a  correct  under- 
standing of  it  is  essential  to  the  solution  of  not  a  few 
vexed  questions  of  missionary  policy. 


10         MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

The  missionary  as  an  individual  is  a  member  of  the 
church  and  thus  is  within  it,  but  his  official  work  is  out- 
side of  it,  just  as  a  soldier  campaigning  in  a  foreign 
country  is  himself  a  citizen  of  his  own  land,  but  carries 
on  his  work  beyond  her  bounds.  Hence  the  work  of 
the  missionary  is  a  temporary  phenomenon  in  the  life 
of  the  church.  It  belongs  to  the  imperfect,  not  to  the 
perfect  state  of  the  church.  When  all  countries  are 
Christianized,  there  will  be  no  more  missionaries,  but 
the  office  of  pastor  and  teacher  will  abide  so  long  as 
this  dispensation  continues.  The  missionaries  are,  so 
to  speak,  the  military  arm  of  the  church,  which  loses 
its  importance  when  a  country  is  fully  subdued,  while 
the  regular  pastorate  corresponds  to  the  civil  govern- 
ment, which  permanently  assumes  the  direction  of  af- 
fairs. 

Mission  work  being,  then,  the  "ad  extra"  work  of 
the  church,  as  distinguished  from  that  which  is  "ad 
intra,"  what  is  the  proper  line  of  distinction  between 
Domestic  Missions  and  Foreign  Missions,  as  two  cog- 
nate branches  of  mission  work?  If  the  terms  are 
used  in  the  strictly  scientific  sense,  the  difference  is 
merely  geographical,  and  hence  of  practical  but  not  of 
scientific  interest.  Work  among  the  unassimilated 
foreign  classes  in  our  large  cities,  among  the  mountain 
whites,  among  unevangelized  Jews,  Mormons,  ne- 
groes, and  Indians,  among  heathen  Chinese  or  Japan- 
ese in  this  country,  as  well  as  in  cities  or  districts  where 
the  church  is  not  yet  established,  or  where  the  inhab- 
itants acknowledge  no  relation  to  her,  is  really  mission 
work,  as  well  as  similar  activity  abroad.    Scientific  ob- 


THE  MISSIONARY  PURPOSE  ii 

jection  can  be  made  to  the  application  of  the  same 
term  to  the  work  by  which  financially  strong  churches 
extend  assistance  to  their  weaker  sisters,  for  the  main- 
tenance of  the  regular  ordinances  of  religion.  This 
belongs  distinctly  to  the  "ad  intra,"  not  to  the  "ad  ex- 
tra" activity  of  the  church,  and  might  be  equally  nec- 
essary even  if  all  men  everywhere  had  come  within 
the  circle  of  the  covenant.  The  term  "Domestic  Mis- 
sions" should  therefore  be  limited  to  that  which  is 
properly  "ad  extra"  to  the  church,  although  within  the 
political  boundaries  of  the  country,  while  some  such 
term  as  "Church  Sustentation"  should  be  applied  to 
the  financial  support  of  the  weaker  congregations. 

We  are  now  ready  for  the  question :  "When  a  re- 
Hgious  denomination  enters  a  new  field,  such  as  Japan 
was  in  1859,  what  does  it  propose  to  accomplish 
there?"  It  is  evident  that  the  correct  reply  to  this  in- 
quiry will  describe  such  a  condition  as,  when  it  is  at- 
tained, will  justify  the  church  in  withdrawing  her 
forces,  with  the  thankful  declaration  that,  by  the  grace 
of  God,  her  work  in  that  land  is  finished,  because  her 
purpose  has  been  accomplished. 

Some  of  the  answers  proposed  need  but  a  passing 
notice,  being  either  quite  inadequate  or  wholly  erron- 
eous. It  is  not  our  object  to  civilize  the  people  or  to 
educate  them,  to  change  their  social  customs  or  politi- 
cal institutions,  to  help  them  medically  or  in  any  other 
department  of  philanthropy.  Our  aim  is  not  to  de- 
stroy their  ancestral  religion,  or  even  to  elevate  their 
moral  life.  Some  of  these  things  may  incidentally 
result  from  our    labors,  but    they  are  not    our  aim. 


12         MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

Neither  do  we  look  forward  to  converting  the  entire 
population.  However  desirable  that  may  be,  we  have 
no  reason  to  think  that  such  a  thing  will  ever  take 
place  in  any  country,  at  least  not  in  this  dispensation. 

There  are  two  solutions  of  our  problem  differing 
widely  from  these,  in  that  they  are  put  forward  by 
well-informed  persons  as  the  result  of  careful  study. 
They  may  be  called  "The  Church  Establishment  The- 
ory" and  "The  Evangelization  Theory,"  although 
these  designations  do  not  fully  indicate  their  char- 
acter. 

Dr.  E.  A.  Lawrence,  who,  in  his  valuable  work, 
"Modern  Missions  in  the  East,"  gives  very  clear  ex- 
pression to  the  church  establishment  theory,  informs 
us  that  this  solution  was  recognized  as  the  correct  one 
in  a  tract  published  by  the  American  Board  in  1856, 
and  that  it  was  expounded  a  little  later  by  the  Rev. 
Henry  Venn,  former  secretary  of  the  Church  Mis- 
sionary Society.  It  was  advocated  also  by  Dr.  Rufus 
Anderson,  one  of  the  most  noted  secretaries  of  the 
American  Board  in  his  "Lectures  on  Missions,"  and 
particularly  affirmed  in  connection  with  the  work  in 
Japan  by  Dr.  G.  W.  Knox,  writing  in  the  Presbyterian 
Review,  1886. 

Dr.  Anderson  says : 

"The  grand  object  of  foreign  missions  is  to  plant  and  multi- 
ply churches  composed  of  native  converts,  each  church  com- 
plete in  itself,  with  presbyters  of  the  same  race,  left  to  de- 
termine their  ecclesiastical  relations  for  themselves,  with  the 
aid   of  judicious   advice   from  their   missionary   fathers." 


THE  MISSIONARY  PURPOSE  13 

In  another  place  the  same  writer  says  of  the  Apostle 
Paul: 

"When  he  had  formed  local  churches,  he  did  not  hesitate  to 
ordain  presbyters  over  them,  the  best  he  could  find,  and  then 
to  throw  upon  the  churches  thus  officered  the  responsibilities 
of  self-government,  self-support,  and  self-propagation." 

It  may  be  remarked  in  passing  that  this  is  the  earli- 
est use  I  have  met  of  the  phrase,  "self-government, 
self-support,  and  self -propagation"  which  has  since 
become  a  stock  expression. 

It  is  evident  from  this  and  other  passages  that  Dr. 
Anderson  was  speaking  of  local  churches  on  the  one 
hand  and  of  individual  missionaries  on  the  other.  A 
more  developed  view,  but  also  in  some  respects  more 
open  to  objection,  is  that  of  Dr.  Lawrence,  who  says: 

"God's  great  agent  for  the  spread  of  his  kingdom  is  the 
church.  In  every  land  he  operates  through  the  church,  and 
missions  operate  distinctly  for  the  church.  They  have  both 
their  source  and  their  aim  in  that.  They  are  the  reproductive 
faculty  of  the  parent  church,  the  constituting  agency  of  the 
native  church.  Every  church  should  work  out  into  a  mission, 
every  mission  should  work  out  into  a  church.  The  conversion 
of  souls  is  a  necessary  part  of  this.  The  primary  aim  of  mis- 
sions is  to  preach  the  gospel  in  all  lands,  the  ultimate  aim  is  to 
plant  the  church  in  all  lands.  When  they  have  done  that, 
their  work  is  accomplished.  Then  the  church  of  each  land, 
thus  planted,  must  win  its  own  people  to  Christ.  The  con- 
verts must  convert,  the  new  church  must  evangelize  and 
Christianize.  India,  China,  Japan,  are  each  to  be  turned  to 
Christ,  not  by  missions,  but  by  the  Indian,  the  Chinese,  the 
Japanese  churches,  when  these  churches  shall  have  been 
securely  planted  by  missions." 


14         MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

Dr.  Lawrence  here  quotes  with  approval  the  words 
of  the  Rev.  Henry  Venn,  who  says : 

"The  object  of  missions  is  the  development  of  native 
churches,  with  a  view  to  their  ultimate  settlement  upon  a  self- 
supporting,  self-governing,  and  self-extending  system.  When 
this  settlement  has  been  effected,  the  missions  will  have 
attained  its  euthanasia,  and  the  missionary  and  all  missionary 
agency  can  be  transferred  to  the  regions  beyond." 

Again  Dr.  Lawrence  says : 

"Missions  are  but  a  step,  although  the  first  and,  it  may  be, 
the  longest  single  step  in  the  conversion  of  the  world.  The 
main  part  of  the  task  devolves  upon  the  native  church  in  each 
land.  Our  part  is  to  organize  individuals  whom  we  may  con- 
vert into  an  indigenous,  independent,  and  expansive  church, 
which  shall  be  the  type  of  a  native  and  productive  Christian- 
ity. We  are  to  found  this  church  upon  Christ  and  the  apostles, 
to  train  it  from  the  start  in  the  principles  of  self-reliance,  self- 
control,  and  self -propagation.  We  are  to  develop  its  ministry, 
found  its  institutions,  organize  its  work." 

Dr.  Knox's  view  is  precisely  similar  to  this.     He 

says: 

"Our  missionaries  organized  the  United  Church  of  Christ 
in  Japan.  Our  mission  aim  is  the  organization  and  training 
of  this  church.  With  its  establishment  our  work  will  be  com- 
plete, and  foreign  missions  will  be  transformed  into  the  home 
missions  of  the  Japanese  church.  .  .  .  The  commission  of 
the  church  is  to  preach  the  truth  to  every  creature,  but  the 
distinctive  aim  of  foreign  missions  is  the  organization  of  the 
native  church." 

It  will  be  noticed  that  the  term  "Church"  is  used 


THE  MISSIONARY  PURPOSE  15 

by  both  Dr.  Lawrence  and  Dr.  Knox  not  as  meaning  a 
local  congregation,  but  in  the  wider  sense  of  a  num- 
ber of  such  congregations  united  under  a  scheme  of 
church  government  into  an  ecclesiastical  body,  a 
Christian  denomination. 

This  view  of  the  aim  of  Foreign  Missions  contains 
much  that  is  valuable.  It  properly  lays  great  emphasis 
upon  the  native  church.  Thus  conceived,  mission 
work  finds  its  end,  not  in  the  conversion  of  uncon- 
nected units  of  humanity,  but  in  the  establishment  of 
institutions  that  shall  outlive  their  founders  and  bless 
the  generations  yet  to  come.  He  who  thus  under- 
stands the  missionary  purpose  will  never  demand  long 
lists  of  converts  as  evidence  of  success:  he  will  look 
rather  to  the  organization,  vitality,  and  spiritual  power 
of  the  native  church. 

This  solution,  however,  has  also  serious  defects,  if 
it  is  accepted  as  a  complete  and  adequate  statement  of 
the  missionary  purpose ;  as  a  missionary  in  Japan  has 
especial  reason  to  know,  for  in  that  country  it  was  for 
years  the  dominant  theory  of  missionary  work,  and  as 
such  it  led  to  false  hopes  of  speedy  success,  produced 
discouragement  among  the  workers,  confused  the 
sphere  of  the  church  and  of  the  missionary  organiza- 
tions, cultivated  among  the  native  leaders  expectations 
that  could  not  be  realized,  checked  the  despatch  of  nec- 
essary reinforcements,  and  altogether  resulted  in  no 
little  injury  to  the  work.  Indeed,  it  furnishes  us  with 
a  remarkable  illustration  of  the  evil  effects  of  a  con- 
ception of  our  purpor ;  which,  in  spite  of  all  the  good 
it  contains,  is  so  inadequate  as  to  be  essentially  false. 


i6  MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

Those  of  us  who  were  reading  the  missionary  mag- 
azines twenty  years  ago,  or  who  heard  the  missionary 
addresses  of  Dr.  Verbeck,  Dr.  Knox  and  others  in  the 
latter  eighties,  will  distinctly  remember  how  rosy  the 
future  of  missionary  work  in  Japan  appeared  at  that 
time. 

Dr.  Verbeck  said,  in  1889: 

"I  am  less  sanguine  than  many  others,  but  it  is  my  confident 
belief  that  if  the  missionary  societies  are  faithful  to  their 
charge  up  to  the  end  of  this  century,  you  need  not,  after  1890, 
send  any  more  missionaries  to  Japan.  You  will  need  to  sup- 
port the  men  already  there,  and  the  institutions,  for  a  while, 
but  no  new  men  will  need  to  go.  The  finishing  up  of  the  work 
can  be  safely  left  to  the  foreign  force  which  will  be  by  that 
time  there,  working  in  conjunction  with  the  ever  increasing 
number  of  native  pastors  and  evangelists.  Some  put  1890  as 
the  date,  some  1895,  but  no  one  puts  it  later  than  1900."  (Gos- 
pel in  All  Lands,  1889,  p.  411). 

It  is  but  just  to  the  memory  of  Dr.  Verbeck  to  say 
that  he  heartily  repented,  later,  of  having  written  such 
things,  and  that  he  did  his  best  to  remedy  the  evil  they 
had  caused. 

The  Twelfth  Annual  Report  of  the  Council  of  Mis- 
sions, an  annual  assembly  of  the  Presbyterian  and  Re- 
formed missionaries,  contains  the  following  expres- 
sions of  confidence  in  the  speedy  completion  of  the 
missionary  task  in  Japan : 

"Our  present  force  is  enough  to  reach  every  part  of  Japan. 
.  .  .  With  our  present  centers  we  can  conveniently  do  all 
that  remains  for  us  to  do.  .  .  .  With  wise  plans,  with 
earnest   work,   with   the   co-operation   of  missions,   with  the 


THE  MISSIONARY  PURPOSE  17 

union  of  the  Japanese  church,  most  of  all,  with  the  continued 
presence  of  the  spirit  of  our  Lord,  we  may  anticipate  the  close 
of  this  foreign  missionary  enterprise  by  the  close  of  the 
nineteenth  century." 

Reading  such  utterances  today,  nearly  a  quarter  of 
a  century  later,  when  no  one  professes  to  anticipate 
the  speedy  close  of  the  foreign  missionary  enterprise 
in  Japan,  we  stand  amazed,  and  wonder  how  such 
ideas  ever  came  to  be  entertained.  The  explanation  of 
this  mystery  is  that  underneath  all  of  these  confident 
expressions  lay  the  theory  of  missions  we  are  dis- 
cussing, the  theory  that  the  purpose  of  missions  is 
to  plant  the  church,  and  nothing  more.  The  leading 
missionaries  were  not  so  ill  informed  as  to  think  that 
the  country  was  then,  or  would  be  by  the  year  1900, 
fully  evangelized,  or  anything  like  it.  What  they  did 
expect  was  that  by  such  a  date  we  should  have  in 
Japan  Protestant  Christian  churches,  including  all 
evangelical  bodies,  with  a  membership  of  a  hundred 
thousand  communicants.  They  expected  that  this  body 
would  be  fairly  well  supplied  with  an  educated  and 
devoted  ministry,  would  be  sound  in  the  essentials  of 
the  faith,  and  would  be  supplied  with  a  Christian  lit- 
erature and  Christian  institutions.  'When  such  con- 
ditions prevail,"  they  said,  "we  may  call  our  work 
done.  We  can  then  gradually  withdraw  our  mission- 
aries and  commit  the  work  of  evangelizing  the  rest  of 
the  population,  however  great,  to  the  Japanese 
churches.  We  may  still  need  to  assist  them  with  con- 
siderable sums  of  money,  but  the  whole  administra- 
tion of  the  work,  and  responsibility  for  it,  shall  be 


i8         MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

theirs."  The  event  has  shown  that  this  expectation 
was  over  sanguine.  Instead  of  a  community  of  one 
hundred  thousand  communicants  in  1900,  we  have 
now,  ten  years  later,  but  sixty  thousand.  The  confi- 
dent expressions  of  speedy  victory,  however,  were 
based  not  only  upon  what  they  expected  the  church 
to  be,  but  also  upon  what  they  considered  to  be  the 
ultimate  aim  of  mission  work.  The  cry  that  the  mis- 
sionary enterprise  is  approaching  its  completion  is  now 
practically  unheard  either  in  Japan  or  in  Korea,  al- 
though the  conditions  supposed  to  justify  withdrawal 
of  the  missionary  force  are  now  more  nearly  present 
in  both  countries  than  they  were  in  Japan  in  1889. 
The  reason  for  this  is  that  this  theory  that  church  es- 
tablishment is  the  sole  aim  of  missions  is  no  longer 
dominant  among  the  missionaries. 

The  reasons  why  it  has  lost  influence  so  largely,  al- 
though still  held  by  some  missionaries  and  still  far  too 
influential  with  the  Boards  in  New  York,  are  as  fol- 
lows: 

(i)  Because  it  fails  to  satisfy  the  evangelistic 
spirit. 

Suppose  that  the  Japanese  church  had  attained  by 
this  time  the  growth  that  was  expected,  would  any 
missionary  upon  whose  heart  the  burden  of  souls  was 
laid  be  content  to  go  home  and  leave  behind  him  large 
districts  and  numberless  villages  in  which  the  message 
had  never  yet  been  heard,  in  the  confidence  that  sooner 
or  later  the  Japanese  church  would  reach  them?  In- 
deed, it  may  fairly  be  asked  whether  the  Church  of 
Christ  in  Japan  does  not  today  present  the  very  pic- 


THE  MISSIONARY  PURPOSE  19 

ture  which  Dr.  Venn  drew  as  the  "euthanasia"  of  the 
missionary  work,  when  the  missionary  and  all  mis- 
sionary agency  could  be  transferred  to  the  regions  be- 
yond. He  says  this  must  take  place  when  the  native 
church  is  self-supporting,  self-governing,  and  self- 
propagating.  This  is  true  to-day  of  the  Church  of 
Christ  in  Japan.  Not  a  single  one  of  its  congregations 
but  is  self-supporting,  and  for  several  years  no  mis- 
sionary or  missionary  agency  has  directly  or  indirectly 
any  direction  of  its  affairs.  It  is  completely  self-gov- 
erning. Its  missions  dot  the  empire  of  Japan,  For- 
mosa, Korea  and  Manchuria.  It  can  truly  be  said  to 
be  self -propagating.  Yet  can  any  heart  that  yearns 
over  a  lost  race  be  satisfied  to  withdraw  from  an  em- 
pire in  which  heathenism  is  still  everywhere  dominant, 
just  because  the  church  has  been  securely  planted 
there?  This  idea  that  our  aim  is  merely  to  establish 
the  church  is  far  too  cold  a  theory.  It  does  not  glow 
with  the  love  of  Christ  and  anxiety  for  the  souls  of 
men.  It  does  not  ring  with  the  enthusiasm  that  has  a 
message  of  light  and  life  to  bring  to  a  dying  world. 

(2)  This  theory  fails  to  reckon  with  the  vast  in- 
ternal problems  of  the  native  church.  When  such  a 
church  is  organized  in  a  non-Christian  land,  the  dis- 
tinction of  '*ad  intra"  and  ''ad  extra"  labor  at  once 
arises.  All  the  different  forms  of  church  activity  are 
called  into  being.  There  is  scarcely  a  problem  to  be 
solved  or  a  work  to  be  done  within  the  church  here 
in  a  Christian  land  that  does  not  occur  on  the  mission 
field,  while  as  a  rule  the  work,  if  it  is  to  be  well  done, 
requires  more  time  and  labor  instead  of  less.     Take 


20         MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

the  work  of  instructing  and  edifying  believers,  for  in- 
stance, what  is  Hkely  to  be  more  difficult,  to  do  that  in 
a  congregation  of  people  acquainted  with  the  gospel 
from  childhood,  or  to  do  it  among  those  almost  wholly 
ignorant  of  Scripture  doctrine  and  history?  This  in- 
ternal work  is  everywhere  the  first  drain  upon  the 
strength  of  the  church.  By  the  necessity  of  the  case  it 
takes  precedence  of  the  "ad  extra"  work,  no  less 
in  Japan  and  in  China  than  here.  If,  now,  we  observe 
that  nine-tenths  of  the  resources  of  the  American 
churches  are  required  for  this  department  of  the  work, 
we  may  be  pretty  sure  that  the  churches  in  Japan  will 
need  no  less.  Moreover,  grave  questions  of  discipline, 
creed,  organization,  worship,  education,  etc.,  present 
themselves,  and  claim  attention.  The  missionaries  may 
indicate  the  principles  involved  in  their  solution,  but 
the  application  of  the  principles  is  so  intimately  con- 
nected with  racial  peculiarities  and  social  customs  that 
the  permanent  settlement  can  come  only  from  the 
church  itself.  Can  such  a  church,  with  such  a  heavy 
burden,  be  left  to  evangelize  a  large  and  growing  pop- 
ulation? This  theory  expects  too  much  from  the  na- 
tive church.  It  lays  upon  the  shoulders  of  a  child  a 
burden  that  would  stagger  a  man.  It  under-estimates 
the  work  to  be  done  and  over-estimates  the  rein- 
forcement brought  us  by  the  infant  church.  We 
cannot  accept  it  as  a  correct  and  adequate  solu- 
tion of  the  problem. 

At  quite  the  other  extreme  from  this  "Church  Es- 
tablishment Theory"  lies  a  view  of  missionary  work 
extensively   found  among  youthful  and   superficially 


THE  MISSIONARY  PURPOSE  21 

informed  people.  We  have  called  it  the  "Evangeliza- 
tion Theory,"  because  it  well-nigh  loses  sight  of  every- 
thing else  in  its  enthusiasm  for  the  immediate  evange- 
lization of  the  whole  world.  It  is  almost  universal 
among  members  of  the  Student  Volunteer  Movement 
who  have  never  been  on  the  field,  and  much  of  the  lit- 
erature of  the  Laymen's  Missionary  Movement  is  in- 
fluenced by  it.  It  has  not  been  so  exactly  and  authori- 
tatively formulated  by  students  of  the  missionary 
problem,  and  hence  is  less  tangible  for  the  purposes  of 
this  discussion.  The  most  prominent  exponent  of  it, 
although  in  its  most  moderate  form,  is  Mr.  John  R. 
Mott,  who  has  written  a  book  with  the  title :  "The 
Evangelization  of  the  World  in  this  Generation."  In 
general  it  may  be  defined  as  that  view  which  consid- 
ers it  obligatory  upon  the  church  and  possible  for  the 
church  to  evangelize  the  world  in  this  generation. 
From  much  that  is  said  and  written,  one  can  hardly 
avoid  the  conclusion  that  this  is  not  only  the  duty,  but 
the  whole  duty,  of  this  generation  of  believers,  and 
certainly  one  is  not  disposed  to  add  to  a  programme  al- 
ready so  extensive. 

However,  evangelization  is  not  to  be  superficially 
understood.     Mr.  Mott  says  : 

"The  evangelization  of  the  world  should  not  be  regarded  as 
an  end  in  itself.  The  church  will  not  have  fulfilled  her  task 
when  the  gospel  has  been  proclaimed  to  all  men.  Such  evan- 
gelization must  be  followed  by  baptism  of  converts,  by  their 
organization  into  churches,  by  building  them  up  in  knowledge, 
faith  and  character,  and  by  enlisting  and  training  them  in 
service.      While    the    missionary    enterprise    should    not    be 


22         MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

diverted  from  the  immediate  and  controlling  aim  of  preaching 
the  gospel  where  Christ  has  not  been  named,  and  while  this 
work  should  have  the  right  of  way  as  the  most  urgent  part  of 
our  task,  it  must  ever  be  looked  upon  as  but  a  means  to  the 
mighty  and  inspiring  object  of  enthroning  Christ  in  individual 
life,  in  family  life,  in  social  life,  in  national  life,  in  interna- 
tional relations,  in  every  relationship  of  mankind,  and,  to  this 
end,  of  planting  and  developing  in  all  non-Christian  lands 
self-supporting,  self-directing,  and  self-propagating  churches." 

Superficially  considered,  this  viev^,  with  its  imme- 
diate and  controlling  aim  of  preaching  the  gospel  where 
Christ  has  not  been  named,  and  its  ultimate  aim  of 
making  Christianity  effective  in  the  national  life  by 
planting  and  developing  churches,  bears  a  close  resem- 
blance to  the  other  theory,  which  also  says :  'The 
primary  aim  of  missions  is  to  preach  the  gospel  in  all 
lands,  the  ultimate  aim  is  to  plant  the  church  in  all 
lands;"  but  the  difference  between  the  two  is  pro- 
found. 

The  one  proposes  to  preach  the  gospel  to  all  lands, 
to  be  sure,  but  not  to  all  the  people,  only  so  far  as  is 
necessary  to  gather  and  train  a  church,  to  which  the 
rest  of  the  responsibility  for  evangelization  may  then 
be  committed,  while  the  other  intends  not  only  to 
evangelize  the  entire  population,  but  to  do  this  within 
a  generation,  and  afterwards  to  organize  churches,  as 
a  means  of  rendering  the  conquest  complete  and  per- 
manent. The  former  chills  the  evangelistic  spirit  by 
declaring  it  to  be  no  part  of  the  aim  of  missions  to 
preach  the  gospel  to  every  creature;  the  latter  glows 
with  evangelistic  fire,  and  allures  us  by  telling  us  that 
the  completion  of  the  whole  evangelistic  task  is  possi- 


THE  MISSIONARY  PURPOSE  23 

ble  in  our  own  time.  The  former  lays  upon  the  na- 
tive church  the  crushing  burden  of  evangehzation 
from  which  it  excuses  the  churches  at  home,  the  latter 
scarcely  recognizes  that  the  native  church  as  such  has 
any  part  in  evangelization  at  all.  Between  the  two, 
if  obUged  to  choose,  I  greatly  prefer  this  view,  as 
moderately  stated  by  Mr.  Mott. 

And  yet,  I  am  not  prepared  to  accept  this  as  the  true 
answer  to  our  question  "What  is  the  Missionary  Pur- 
pose?" Neither  am  I  able  to  admit  that  'The  Evange- 
lization of  the  World  in  this  Generation,"  which  is  the 
watchword  of  this  whole  school,  is  a  legitimate  motto 
to  inscribe  upon  our  banners.  My  objections  to  it 
are,  first,  that  it  is  illegitimate  to  insert  the  words  "in 
this  generation,"  and,  secondly,  that  this  view  lays  too 
little  emphasis  upon  the  native  church  as  not  only  a 
valuable,  but  an  indispensable  ally  in  the  work. 

To  say  that  we  should  aim  to  evangelize  the  world 
in  this  generation,  is  to  express  the  conviction  that  the 
thing  is  possible.  Such  a  conviction  must  be  based 
upon  either  reason  or  faith,  but  it  is  my  opinion  that 
upon  neither  of  these  grounds  can  we  beUeve  such  a 
thing  possible.  We  have  no  right  here  to  appeal  to 
the  omnipotence  of  God,  since  miraculous  interposi- 
tion is  not  to  be  expected.  The  promise  of  God  to  be 
with  his  church  in  this  great  work  contains  no  time 
element,  either  directly  or  indirectly,  and  an  appeal  to 
faith  not  based  either  upon  a  divine  promise  or  upon 
sound  reason  is  presumption  instead  of  faith. 

Much  is  said  by  some  writers  of  the  resources  of 
the  church.    They  are  no  doubt  great,  and  wonderful 


24         MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

blessings  would  be  enjoyed  if  they  were  fully  em- 
ployed in  the  Lord's  work.  Great  as  they  are,  how- 
ever, there  are  other  things  to  be  considered,  and  there 
are  processes  to  be  gone  through  with  in  which  the 
lapse  of  considerable  time  is  a  necessary  element. 
Some  of  the  literature  of  the  Laymen's  Movement 
would  give  one  the  impression  that  it  is  altogether 
merely  a  matter  of  arithmetic.  So  many  men,  so  many 
dollars,  and  the  whole  business  will  be  finished  in  so 
many  years!  Thus  one  hears  now  and  again  of  cal- 
culations as  to  how  many  men  and  how  much  money 
would  be  necessary  to  evangelize  a  given  country  in 
thirty,  forty,  or  fifty  years.  Our  mission,  a  number  of 
years  ago,  was  requested  by  the  Board  to  submit  a 
^]  statement  indicating  how  many  men  were  necessary 
to  evangelize  our  field.  I  proposed  respectfully  to  in- 
form the  Board  that  no  one  was  wise  enough  to  an- 
swer such  questions,  but  the  mission  thought  better  of 
it  and  prepared  some  sort  of  a  reply. 

I  do  not  hesitate  to  say,  however,  that  no  calcula- 
tions of  this  kind  are  worth  much,  by  whomever  pre- 
pared. There  are  too  many  unknown  elements,  which 
nevertheless  are  decisive  of  the  issue.  Let  us  take 
only  one,  the  native  church.  As  I  protested  a  little 
while  ago  against  an  overestimate  of  this  church  and 
its  official  responsibility,  so  now  it  becomes  my  duty  to 
protest  against  an  underestimate  of  it  as  an  essential 
element  in  the  case.  Great  as  are  the  resources  of  the 
church  in  Christian  lands,  it  is  clear  to  me  that  it 
would  be  impossible  for  it  to  bring  the  gospel  to  every 
creature  without  the  conversion  of  large  numbers  of 


THE  MISSIONARY  PURPOSE  25 

men  and  the  organization  of  Christian  institutions,  and 
that  not  after  the  completion  of  evangehzation  or  sub- 
ordinate to  it,  but  proceeding  step  by  step,  in  intimate 
association  with  it,  as  in  fact,  indispensable  to  it.  To 
be  convinced  of  this  we  have  only  to  glance  at  the 
necessity  for  a  large  number  of  native  helpers,  both 
paid  and  unpaid.  Mr.  Mott  estimates  that  for  every 
thousand  missionaries  we  require  ten  thousand  paid 
helpers,  besides  multitudes  of  volunteer  workers.  But 
if  we  are  to  have  these,  we  clearly  need  large  num- 
bers of  conversions,  greater  than  anything  we  have 
had  hitherto.  Otherwise,  whence  the  able  and  conse- 
crated leaders,  whence  the  multitude  of  unpaid  mes- 
sengers ?  Men  are  not  eligible  to  this  work  unless  they 
are  distinguished  for  good  intellectual  qualities,  faith, 
piety  and  zeal.  Such  men  are,  of  course,  only  a  rela- 
tively small  proportion  of  the  church.  If  there  be 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  these  there  must  be  millions 
of  church  members,  from  whom  they  are  chosen.  This 
need  of  large  numbers  of  genuine  converts,  organized 
immediately  into  churches,  must  not  be  minimized,  for 
without  it  the  evangelization  of  any  given  district  is 
impossible,  at  least  in  any  real  and  permanent  sense. 
For,  to  mention  only  one  thing,  suppose  that  by  the 
exertion  of  all  our  forces  we  did  succeed  in  evangeliz- 
ing the  world  without  a  great  many  conversions  or 
without  organization,  how  long  would  it  stay  evange- 
lized? Would  not  the  whole  work  have  to  be  done 
over  again  in  the  next  generation,  nay,  in  the  next 
decade?  We  should  resemble  an  invading  army  that 
is  strong  enough  to  defeat  the  enemy  at  every  point, 


26         MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

but  not  strong  enough  to  hold  the  country  that  has  been 
fought  over,  and  that  is,  therefore,  constantly  obliged 
to  repeat  its  victories.  There  is  no  progress  in  that.  If 
we  could  do  such  a  thing,  it  would  not  be  worth  the 
doing. 

The  report  of  the  Cleveland  Student  Volunteer 
Convention  says  of  the  watchword: 

"It  does  not  mean  the  conversion  of  the  world,  because  the 
acceptance  of  Christ  rests  with  the  hearer,  not  with  the 
speaker." 

And  Mr.  Mott  says : 

"Our  part  consists  of  bringing  the  gospel  to  bear  on  un- 
saved men.  The  results  are  with  the  men  whom  we  would 
reach  and  with  the  Spirit  of  God." 

Precisely.  The  extent  to  which  and  the  rapidity 
with  which  they  will  listen  and  believe  and  join  in  the 
work  of  evangelizing  their  fellows  are  unknown  quan- 
tities, and  yet  these  are  the  most  important  of  all  hu- 
man factors,  and  until  you  know  them,  all  your  calcu- 
lations of  money  and  men  and  time  required  are  noth- 
ing more  than  vanity.  Thus  the  whole  programme  of 
the  evangelization  of  the  world  in  this  generation  goes 
overboard.  It  charms  by  its  enthusiasm  and  allures 
with  its  rosy  promise  of  a  dash  to  victory,  but  it  will 
not  bear  analysis  in  the  face  of  practical  missionary 
experience.  So  far  as  the  enthusiasm  of  the  Laymen's 
Movement  is  based  upon  the  hopes  this  theory  has  in- 
spired, I  fear  that  it  will  ultimately  do  no  little  harm, 
for  after  twenty  or  thirty  years  they  will  begin  to  ask 


THE  MISSIONARY  PURPOSE  27 

us  why  we  have  not  made  good,  and  I  fear  we  mis- 
sionaries will  get  the  blame  for  not  carrying  out  the 
programme  that  has  been  mapped  out  for  us. 
^  What,  then,  is  the  true  object  of  our  work? 

It  is  neither,  on  the  one  hand,  organization  without 
complete  evangelization,  nor,  on  the  other,  such  evan- 
gelization with  organization  ignored  or  relegated  to  a 
subordinate  place.  It  is  found  rather  in  the  indissolu- 
ble union  of  the  two,  distinguishable  in  thought,  but 
not  in  practice :  evangelization  and  organization,  one 
and  inseparable,  now  and  unto  the  end  of  our  work. 
Neither  is  entitled  to  constant  precedence  over  the 
other.  It  depends  upon  circumstances.  At  one  time 
preaching  to  the  heathen  will  be  the  more  urgent  part 
of  our  task,  at  another  time  it  will  yield  the  right  of 
way  to  instructing  and  organizing  converts.  Evan- 
gelization will  push  ahead  into  new  regions  as  fast 
as  the  old  are  occupied,  but  never  too  fast  for  organi- 
zation to  follow  close  upon  it.  The  army  cannot  ad- 
vance with  the  speed  of  the  cavalry,  or  even  the  in- 
fantry, but  must  wait  for  the  supply  trains.  It  is  the 
same  in  our  work.  The  missionary  who  gets  evangeli- 
zation too  far  ahead  of  church  organization  is  like  the 
general  whose  lines  of  communication  are  too  long  to 
be  well  protected.  He  must  fall  back,  or  his  labor  will 
be  lost. 

The  purpose  of  our  missionary  work  is  thus  to  re- 

l    produce  abroad  the  conditions   existing  in  our   own 

!  country,  where  no  considerable  district  and  no  numer- 

;  ous  or  important  class  of  society  is  out  of  touch  with 

the  Christian  church.  To  state  the  missionary  purpose 


28         MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

in  a  single  word,  it  is  not  merely  to  plant  the  church  in 
a  country,  nor  merely  to  evangelize  the  present  genera- 
tion of  its  inhabitants :  It  is  to  Christianise  that  coun- 
try. I  mean  by  this  to  establish  and  so  to  distribute 
the  institutions  of  the  church  that  the  gospel  shall  be 
kept  before  practically  the  whole  population  of  a  given 
field  all  the  time,  so  that  the  cases  shall  be  compara- 
tively few  where  a  person  can  grow  from  childhood  to 
mature  age  without  having  the  knowledge  that  is  nec- 
essary to  faith.  To  use  a  military  term,  it  is  the  "ef- 
fective occupation"  of  a  territory  by  an  invading 
army.  When  we  have  in  this  manner  garrisoned  a 
field  with  Christian  camps  in  sufficient  numbers  and 
with  sufficient  appHances  to  bring  the  gospel  to  the  at- 
tention of  each  new  generation  as  it  appears  upon  the 
scene,  then  our  task  in  that  field  is  accomplished,  and 
not  till  then.  We  thus  discharge  our  obligations,  not 
only  to  our  own  generation,  but  also  to  those  who 
V  come  after  us.  f  As  Mr.  Robert  E.  Speer  has  well  said: 
**Our  duty  lies  certainly  to  our  own  generation,  but  it 
does  not  stop  there." 

Thus  conceived,  here  are  three  stages  in  the  mis- 
sionary work  among  any  people.  First  comes  the  time 
when  there  is  nothing  but  evangelization,  in  one  of  its 
many  forms,  preaching,  teaching,  healing,  visiting, 
publishing,  etc.  This  is  followed  by  a  period  when  the 
chief  attention  of  the  missionary  must  be  devoted  to 
the  organization  and  training  of  the  native  church. 
Finally  comes  the  longest  period  of  all,  that  in  which, 
side  by  side  with  the  church  thus  founded  and  trained, 
the  missionaries  undertake   to  evangelize   the   entire 


THE  MISSIONARY  PURPOSE  29 

population.  Such  work  belongs  no  more  to  the  church 
in  that  land,  in  its  organized  capacity,  than  it  does  to 
the  church  in  America,  working  through  its  represen- 
tatives in  the  field.  It  belongs  most  to  the  one  that 
can  best  spare  the  strength  required  for  it.  In  this 
work  the  chief  part  will  at  first  be  that  of  the  foreign 
church ;  later,  as  the  native  church  grows  stronger,  its 
share  will  increase,  but  neither  will  be  justified  in 
withdrawing  until  the  work  is  practically  done ;  for  so 
long  as  there  exists  any  portion  of  the  population  that 
the  foreign  church  can  but  the  native  church  cannot 
immediately  evangelize,  the  primary  obligation  of  the 
command  of  Christ  remains  in  force. 

The  time  for  withdrawal  will  be  when  liberty  has 
not  only  been  proclaimed  throughout  the  land,  to  allf 
the  inhabitants  thereof,  but  when  provision  has  also 
been  made  for  the  permanence  of  the  proclamation,  by 
establishing  local  organizations  everywhere.  Then  or- 
ganized heathenism  will  have  disappeared.  Instead  of 
the  village  temple,  will  arise  the  village  church ;  in- 
stead of  the  household  gods  and  their  worship  will  be 
found  the  family  altar.  Then  the  church  of  such  a 
land  may  safely  be  left  to  accomplish  her  own  proper 
task,  internally,  to  nourish  her  children,  externally,  to 
overcome  the  lingering  vestiges  of  opposition  and  to 
apply  the  Christian  principles  to  the  national  life,  until 
every  thought  has  been  made  subject  to  the  obedience 
of  Christ. 

It  would  be  pleasant  if  I  could  hold  out  to  you  the 
prospect  that  so  grand  a  purpose  can  be  realized  in  a 
brief  space  of  time.    But  this  I  cannot  do.    If  the  ex- 


30  MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

perience  of  the  past  means  anything,  it  means  that  the 
struggle  will  be  long,  and  that  the  goal  is  distant.  The 
progress  of  the  kingdom  in  heathen  lands  hitherto  ex- 
hibits unmistakably  the  phenomena  of  growth,  and 
when  you  say  growth,  you  speak  of  something  that 
must  be  waited  for.  God  has  a  process  for  making 
oaks.  It  is  not  to  be  buried.  He  who  desires  an  oak 
must  plant  his  acorn  and  be  content  to  wait. 

So  let  us,  also,  my  brethren,  not  as  impatient  chil- 
dren, but  as  thoughtful  and  determined  men,  gird  our- 
selves and  lead  on  our  churches  to  this  great  work.  If 
it  seem  sometimes  that  the  promise  of  God  tarries 
long,  we  may  not  on  that  account  lower  our  ideal,  nor 
dare  we  hold  out  to  our  people  unfounded  hopes  of 
speedy  victory.  But  what  we  dare  to  do  is  this :  To 
perform  our  work,  steadfastly,  unfalteringly,  trust- 
fully, looking  away  from  all  present  things  to  the 
blessed  assurance  of  that  time  when  the  idols  shall  be 
utterly  abolished,  and  when  the  knowledge  of  the  Lord 
shall  cover  the  earth  as  the  waters  cover  the  bottom  of 
the  sea.  If,  like  the  patriarchs  of  old,  we  have  not 
the  joy  of  beholding  the  fulfillment  of  these  promises, 
yet  it  is  much  to  have  seen  them  and  greeted  them 
from  afar. 


CHAPTER  II. 

The  Conditions  Under  Which   the   Missionary 
Purpose  is  to  be  Accomplished  in  Japan. 

Although  Christianity  is  a  divine  institution,  bring- 
ing into  the  world  truth  and  grace,  life  and  light  from 
no  created  source,  but  from  the  Father  of  mercies,  by 
Jesus  Christ,  His  Son,  through  the  operation  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  yet  its  manifestation  stands  in  intimate 
relation  to  its  earthly  surroundings.  There  is  a  duality 
about  it  that  is  seen  both  in  its  inner  nature  and  in  its 
outward  form.  It  is  genuinely  divine,  but  no  less  gen- 
uinely human.  The  union  of  the  two  natures  in  the 
person  of  the  Redeemer  finds  its  corollary  in  the  na- 
ture of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  and  no  less  in  the  histor- 
ical development  of  the  Christian  church. 

That  there  is  a  direct  activity  of  God  in  the  mission- 
ary work  is,  it  seems  to  me,  too  often  forgotten.  We 
ought  never  to  think  or  speak  of  a  spiritual  work  as 
if  it  were  subject  absolutely  to  the  ordinary  laws  of 
cause  and  effect.  There  is  behind  all  outward  condi- 
tions the  will  and  work  of  God,  whose  plans  are  be- 
yond human  calculation,  and  whose  leadings  frequent- 
ly upset  out  most  careful  reckonings.  But  while  this 
supreme  sovereignty  of  the  Heavenly  Father  is  at  all 
times  to  be  remembered  by  the  worker  in  His  king- 
dom, trustfully  in  adversity,  thankfully  in  prosperity, 
we  may  never  allow  ourselves  on  that  account  to  lose 
sight  of  the  human  element  in  our  work,  the  element 


32  MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

that  connects  it  with  the  racial,  poHtical,  moral  and 
social  conditions  of  the  men  among  whom  we  desire  to 
set  up  the  kingdom.  It  is  to  this  phase  of  the  question 
that  we  are  to  devote  our  attention  to-day.  Our  view 
in  the  previous  lecture  was  general,  for  the  purpose  of 
the  missionary  work  is  the  same  everywhere :  in  the 
present  discussion  and  hereafter  it  will  be  strictly  par- 
ticular, for  the  outward  conditions  that  we  must  meet 
in  the  accomplishment  of  our  work  are  found  to  vary 
widely  with  the  different  countries  where  we  under- 
take the  work. 

I.    General  Conditions. 

The  general  conditions  in  Japan  may  safely  be 
called  remarkably  favorable.  The  country  in  which 
we  are  to  work  out  our  problem  of  Christianization  is 
not  large,  the  total  area  being  not  far  from  that  of  Cal- 
ifornia, or  equal  to  the  combined  areas  of  Michigan, 
Wisconsin,  and  half  of  Illinois.  Every  part  is  easily 
accessible  by  water,  rail  or  by  other  means  of  convey- 
ance. The  race  that  inhabits  these  islands  is  compact 
and  homogeneous,  the  customs,  ideas,  and  language 
being  everywhere  practically  identical.  Travel  from 
one  province  to  another,  and  even  from  end  to  end  of 
the  country  to  another  is  remarkably  common.  Not 
only  the  government,  but  also  the  various  popular  in- 
terests, are  centraHzed  in  the  capital  to  a  marked  de- 
gree. There  is  thus  nothing  of  the  isolation  that  is 
complained  of  in  the  provinces  of  China.  Neither  do 
the  dialects  give  us  any  trouble.  There  are  certain 
variations  in  the  common  speech,  notably  in  the  prov- 


CONDITIONS  IN  JAPAN  33 

ince  of  Satsuma,  where  even  a  Japanese  from  another 
part  of  the  country  finds  it  difficult  to  understand  the 
peasantry;  but  the  national  language  is  everywhere 
understood  and  spoken  by  the  intelligent  and  taught 
in  the  schools.  The  only  thing  to  be  complained  of  in 
the  language  is  its  extreme  difficulty  for  a  foreigner. 
Taking  the  word  language  in  its  widest  sense,  as  em- 
bracing all  the  varieties  of  oral  and  written  commun- 
ication, it  may  well  be  doubted  whether  there  is  any 
other  to  compare  with  it.  Dr.  Hepburn,  the  great  lex- 
icographer, who  came  to  Japan  after  several  years' 
residence  in  China,  says  of  it:  "It  is  a  difficult  lan- 
guage, much  more  so,  in  my  opinion,  than  the  Chi- 
nese." This  judgment  is  invariably  confirmed  by  mis- 
sionaries who  have  been  transferred  from  China  to 
Japan  or  the  reverse. 

The  Japanese  are  a  civilized  people.  Almost  the 
only  thing  that  strikes  the  observer  as  uncivilized  is 
the  indecent  exposure  of  the  body.  For  the  rest, 
Japan  bears  everywhere  the  marks  of  civilized  society, 
in  the  security  of  life  and  property,  under  the  protec- 
tion of  excellent  laws,  well  administered,  in  the  refine- 
ment that  marks  social  intercourse,  in  her  sanitary  reg- 
ulations, in  knowledge  of  medicine  and  of  the  fine  arts, 
in  her  literature,  in  her  educational  system,  in  division 
of  labor,  in  the  use  of  labor-saving  machinery,  in  her 
commercial  and  banking  systems,  in  the  easy  commun- 
ication between  all  parts  of  the  country  by  good  roads, 
railways,  postoffice  and  telegraphs,  and  in  the  superb 
organization  of  her  police,  army  and  navy. 
The  Japanese  are  an  intelligent  people.  Ability  to 
3  ^ ^~ ^" 


34         MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

read  and  write  the  simpler  forms  of  the  language  is 
almost  universal.  The  common  school  and  the  news- 
paper penetrate  to  the  remotest  recesses  of  the  coun- 
try. More  than  three  thousand  newspapers  and  mag- 
azines are  in  circulation. 

Japan  is  also  an  independent,  warlike,  and  powerful 
nation.  No  foreign  foe  has  ever  so  much  as  set  foot 
upon  the  soil  of  the  empire,  and  in  no  war  has  she  ever 
been  defeated.  We  are  proud  of  our  independence, 
purchased,  as  it  was,  with  a  heavy  price,  but  Japan 
was  free  born  and  has  remained  free.  Naturally,  the 
people  are  very  self-conscious,  very  proud  of  their  in- 
dependence, and  extremely  sensitive.  Such  pride  has 
its  objectionable  side,  and  the  missionary  who  would 
work  among  such  people  has  to  keep  himself  in  the 
background  with  self-forgetful  love  and  wisdom;  but 
this  characteristic  of  the  people  is  also  a  great  bless- 
ing, in  that  it  prevents  any  of  the  servility  and  help- 
less dependence  on  the  missionary  that  are  the  curse 
of  missionary  work  in  some  countries.  The  military 
power  of  the  Japanese  empire  also  relieves  our  work 
of  all  that  suspicion  of  hidden  political  purpose  that  so 
unjustly,  but  so  naturally,  attaches  to  missionaries  la- 
boring among  the  weaker  races. 

Japan  is  fortunate,  also,  in  that  the  wealth  of  the 
country  is  rather  evenly  distributed.  The  many  small 
manufacturers  and  shopkeepers  are  one  of  the  striking 
features  of  a  Japanese  town.  In  the  production  of 
tea,  silk,  matting,  and  other  staples,  one  meets  with 
but  few  large  factories.  Such  work  is  carried  on  in 
numerous  small  establishments  in  towns  and  villages. 


CONDITIONS  IN  JAPAN  35 

The  evils  of  crowded  life,  industrial  slavery,  and  the 
strife  between  labor  and  capital  have  hitherto  been 
escaped.  These  conditions  are  changing,  however, 
with  the  increasing  use  of  labor-saving  machinery. 

The  population  is  not  less  evenly  distributed  than 
the  wealth.  It  has  not  yet  been  gathered  into  a  few 
large  cities,  but  is  found  mainly  in  small  villages  of  a 
few  scores  of  houses  each.  The  farmers  do  not  live 
on  their  farms,  but  in  such  villages.  The  result  is  to 
render  the  people  physically  and  geographically  far 
more  accessible  than  if  they  were  either  in  congested 
centers  or  subject  to  the  isolation  of  farm  life  as  we 
know  it.  On  the  other  hand,  it  operates  also  to  pro- 
duce a  strong  local  organization  and  a  fossilized  local 
opinion,  which  very  greatly  hampers  the  stranger  who 
strives  to  gain  entrance,  be  he  Japanese  or  foreign,  and 
deprives  the  individual  to  a  remarkable  degree  of  his 
personal  liberty  to  modify  his  ancestral  religious  con- 
nections. 

A  point  of  special  importance  in  the  social  life  of 
any  people  is  the  position  of  women.  This  is  far  bet- 
ter in  Japan  than  in  any  other  non-Christian  land.  Her 
legal  rights  are  behind  those  of  our  own  country  only 
in  one  conspicuous  point,  that  she  has  no  legal  remedy 
if  her  husband  is  unfaithful  to  her.  The  popular 
standard  of  opinion  and  practice,  however,  lays  con- 
siderably behind  the  law.  Practically,  there  are  seri- 
ous evils  yet  in  the  position  of  women.  Marriage  is 
too  greatly  a  matter  of  business,  to  be  regulated  with- 
out the  consent  of  the  bride.  Mutual  affection  is  not 
given  its  rightful  place.    Divorce  and  concubinage  are 


36         MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

in  consequence  fearfully  common,  and  other  deplor- 
able vices  undermine  the  permanence  and  sanctity  of 
family  life.  Yet  while  the  position  of  woman  is  far 
from  being  what  it  should  be,  on  the  whole  we  may  be 
thankful  that  it  is  so  good.  Conditions  in  this  respect 
are  constantly  improving.  Women  are  entirely  acces- 
sible to  the  gospel,  and  if  reasonable  care  is  used,  may 
be  reached  by  men  as  well  as  by  women. 

The  family  is  an  element  in  the  social  structure  of 
Japan  that  deserves  careful  attention.  As  embodied  in 
the  Civil  Code,  which  went  into  operation  in  1899,  it 
is  the  most  prominent  feature  of  Old  Japan  that  has 
been  deliberately  preserved.  The  family,  in  the  sense 
of  consisting  of  husband,  wife,  and  children,  only 
these  and  no  more,  is  of  comparatively  little  import- 
ance in  Japan.  It  exists  as  a  subordinate  part  of  the 
larger  group  of  relatives  united  under  the  headship  of 
one  person,  called  a  "House."  In  certain  respects, 
the  relation  of  a  person  to  the  head  of  a  "House" 
takes  precedence  of  his  relation  to  his  father  and 
mother.  The  "House"  may  be  composed  of  several 
families,  or  of  one  family,  or  of  two  or  more  individ- 
uals who,  under  our  social  system  would  have  no  re- 
lation to  each  other  at  all.  It  is  a  survival  under  mod- 
ern conditions  of  the  patriarchal,  or  clan  system.  It 
is  an  anachronism  in  a  country  like  New  Japan,  and 
we  may  expect  its  eventual  disappearance,  but  for  the 
present  it  is  too  deeply  rooted  in  popular  esteem  to  be 
set  aside.  It  is  practically  a  considerable  hindrance  to 
our  work,  in  restricting  the  liberty  even  of  the  adult 


CONDITIONS  IN  JAPAN  37 

individual;  and  lies  at  the  basis  of  some  of  the  objec- 
tionable features  of  the  existing  marriage  customs. 

When  I  delivered  a  similar  course  of  lectures  ten 
years  ago  I  devoted  considerable  space  to  the  political 
conditions,  and  expressed  the  apprehension  that,  in 
spite  of  the  theoretically  perfect  religious  liberty  en- 
joyed in  Japan,  the  government  might  in  various  ways 
hamper  our  educational  and  evangelistic  work,  not 
necessarily  from  a  desire  to  restrict  the  spread  of 
Christianity,  but  from  the  natural  tendency  of  a  bu- 
reaucratic government  to  regulate  everything.  I  am 
happy  to  say  that  the  developments  of  the  past  ten 
years  have  not  confirmed  these  apprehensions.  What 
the  future  may  contain  we  do  not  know,  but  for  the 
present  we  may  dismiss  the  whole  subject  of  our  rela- 
tions to  the  government  with  the  thankful  acknowl- 
edgment that  we  could  ask  nothing  better  than  a  con- 
tinuance of  present  conditions. 

II.    Religious  Conditions. 

Important  as  are  the  conditions  thus  far  discussed, 
in  their  bearing  upon  the  Christianization  of  Japan, 
they  touch  our  problem  in  a  far  less  direct  manner 
than  that  to  which  we  now  turn,  viz. :  the  religious  and 
moral  condition  of  the  people.  As  we  have  certain 
doctrines  to  teach  them  and  certain  permanent  insti- 
tutions to  organize  among  them,  we  are  deeply  inter- 
ested in  knowing  how  far  such  ideas  or  methods  are 
foreign  to  the  Japanese  mind  and  in  how  far  they 
have  been  prepared  for  the  reception  of  Christianity 
by  their  own  ancient  beliefs  and  practices.    The  Apos- 


38         MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

tie  Paul,  in  the  epistle  to  the  Galatians,  speaking  of  the 
rudiments  of  religious  knowledge  which  his  converts 
had  long  outgrown,  but  were  in  danger  of  returning 
to,  seems  to  include  in  that  term  not  only  Judaism, 
but  also  heathenism,  as  having  to  a  real,  though  small 
degree  prepared  their  minds  for  the  reception  of  the 
truth.  That  the  same  thing  has  taken  place  in  Japan 
becomes  evident  when  we  analyze  the  systems  current 
there,  to  discover  what  elements  of  moral  and  relig- 
ious knowledge  each  has  taught  the  Japanese  people. 

The  Japanese  have  two  religions,  Shinto  and  Budd- 
hism. Some  scholars  assert  that  Confucianism  also 
has  filled  the  place  of  a  religion  to  choice  souls  among 
the  Japanese,  but  this  class  was  at  best  small,  and  is 
now  practically  extinct,  so  that  we  need  not  consider 
Confucianism  under  the  head  of  religions. 

Shinto  is  the  immemorial  belief  of  the  Japanese,  and 
is  a  compound  of  two  kinds  of  polytheism,  viz. :  na- 
ture worship  and  ancestor  worship,  culminating  in  the 
reverence  paid  to  the  Imperial  line,  both  dead  and  liv- 
ing. This,  sometimes,  among  the  more  thoughtful, 
passes  into  an  apotheosis  of  the  state  that  reminds  us 
of  some  phases  of  thought  in  ancient  Greece  and 
Rome.  In  this  worship  of  the  spirits  of  the  dead,  the 
ideas  of  the  existence  of  the  soul  and  of  its  immor- 
tality are  necessarily  involved.  Shinto  has  the  merit 
of  being  in  some  sense  a  spiritual  religion,  for  it  makes 
no  use  of  images,  the  absence  of  which  is  one  of  the 
most  striking  features  of  a  Shinto  temple.  Worship  is 
thus  directed  towards  unseen  deities  and  spirits. 
Shinto  has  many  prayers  and  sacred  hymns,  most  of 


CONDITIONS  IN  JAPAN  39 

them  in  the  ancient  language,  which  is  not  well  under- 
stood by  the  people.  It  has  also  sacrifices.  It  is  said 
that  formerly  bloody  sacrifices,  and  even  human  sac- 
rifices, were  offered,  but,  so  far  as  I  can  learn,  they 
are  now  confined  to  offerings  of  rice,  fish  and  other 
food.  Shinto  has  much  to  say  about  defilement,  which 
is  primarily  physical,  but  transferred  also  to  moral 
evil.  This  is  the  nearest  idea  to  our  idea  of  sin,  and 
pervades  the  entire  system.  Such  uncleanness  re- 
quires various  ceremonies  of  purification,  by  fire,  by 
water  and  by  salt.  For  the  whole  nation  the  ceremony 
of  purification  is  performed  by  the  Emperor  once  a 
year.  This  is  called  "The  Great  Purification,"  and 
clearly  involves  the  idea  of  a  great  high  priest  and  of 
the  efficacy  of  intercession.  In  this  idea  of  ceremonial 
uncleanness  and  of  purification  both  by  the  individual 
for  himself  and  by  the  Emperor  for  the  whole  people, 
as  well  as  in  the  offerings  of  food,  we  cannot  help 
noticing  an  interesting,  although,  perhaps,  superficial 
resemblance  to  the  Mosaic  code. 

Shinto  has  the  advantage  of  being  the  state  religion 
of  Japan.  The  chief  temples  are  supported  by  the 
government  funds,  and  when  great  public  ceremonies 
are  to  be  performed,  the  Shinto  priests  are  sure  to 
conduct  the  religious  services. 

In  its  organization,  Shinto  is  weak,  having  no  for- 
mulated creed  and  no  regular  parish  system.  It  has 
temples,  where  the  people  worship  singly  or  in  crowds, 
but  no  regular  public  worship  or  meetings  for  prayer 
or  instruction.  It  is  divided  into  a  number  of  sects. 
It  is  optimistic  in  its  view  of  life,  has  many  feasts,  and 


40         MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

its  general  tendency  is  not  towards  a  solemn  and 
thoughtful  frame  of  mind,  but  rather  to  a  light-heart- 
ed and  careless  enjoyment  of  present  things.  It  takes 
no  note  of  the  tremendous  fact  of  suffering  in  human 
life,  and  makes  no  provision  for  alleviating  it. 

Herein  lies  perhaps  the  widest  divergence  between 
Shinto  and  Buddhism,  for  the  latter  system  takes  its 
starting  point  from  the  fact  of  suffering,  and  reaches 
its  end  in  its  complete  cessation.  In  its  original  form 
Buddhism  is  an  atheistic  philosophy,  based  upon  the 
idea  that  the  individual  nature  is  indestructible  by 
death,  and  therefore  subject  to  successive  rebirths,  in 
a  higher  or  lower  condition,  according  to  its  merit,  op- 
erating, not  by  the  judgment  of  a  personal  divine  law 
giver,  but  by  an  inexorable  law  of  cause  and  effect.  In 
this  process  the  individual  is  constantly  exposed  to 
suffering  unless  and  until  he,  by  his  own  efforts, 
reaches  a  condition  where  he  can  repress  all  desire  or 
passion,  which  is  the  highest  enlightenment. 

This  system  is  no  doubt  studied  and  comprehended 
more  or  less  by  the  higher  priests  and  scholars  of 
Japan,  for  there  are  some  of  them  who  have  made  a 
specialty  of  the  Sanscrit  language  and  both  in  Europe 
and  in  India  have  made  a  study  of  the  original  sources 
of  their  religion.  This  is,  however,  not  the  Buddhism 
of  the  common  people.  So  far  as  it  is  found  in  Japan 
at  all,  it  must  be  considered  an  esoteric  philosophy.  In 
the  common  form  of  the  religion,  Japanese  Buddhism 
is  a  compound  wherein,  to  be  sure,  remnants  of  these 
philosophical  principles  are  present,  but  where  they 
are  overshadowed  by  later  developments,  until  more 


CONDITIONS  IN  JAPAN  41 

than  forty  divergent  sects  teach  as  many  forms  of 
faith.  In  general,  Japanese  Buddhism  may  be  de- 
scribed as  an  idolatrous  system  presenting  as  religious 
elements  nature  and  ancestor  worship,  absorbed  from 
Shinto,  Hindooism,  and  other  sources ;  worship  of  im- 
aginary deities  who  were  originally  personifications 
of  the  virtue  of  Buddha;  and  saint  worship,  wherein 
especially  the  founders  of  the  sects  have  prayers  and 
worship  addressed  to  them.  All  this  is  accompanied 
by  the  abundant  use  of  images  of  wood,  stone  and 
metal,  some  of  them  of  great  size;  the  one  at  Kama- 
kura,  for  instance,  being  nearly  fifty  feet  high  and  one 
hundred  feet  in  circumference.  There  is  no  coarser 
and  crasser  idolatry  possible  than  is  in  evidence 
throughout  Japan. 

Absolutely  essential  to  Buddhism  in  all  of  its  forms 
is  the  doctrine  of  a  future  existence,  and  of  the  rela- 
tion of  our  good  and  evil  deeds  to  our  condition  after 
death.  In  this  respect  it  is  a  wonderful  advance  over 
Shinto.  It  touches  the  deepest  thoughts  and  aspira- 
tions of  suffering  humanity  in  a  way  that  is  quite  for- 
eign to  the  other  religion.  In  some  of  the  most  popu- 
lar sects,  this  doctrine  of  a  future  life  has  taken  the 
form  of  a  belief  in  heaven  and  hell,  described  in  ways 
that  correspond  to  the  lower  mediaeval  conceptions  of 
both  in  European  Christianity.  Sin  is  presented  as 
uncontrolled  selfish  passion,  leading  to  every  form  of 
moral  evil.  The  way  to  salvation  is  through  self-re- 
pression, renunciation  of  the  world  and  meditation. 
The  recognition  that  this  way  is  hard,  not  to  say  im- 
possible, to  the  average  man,  worked  in  thoughtful 


42         MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

minds  a  feeling  that  upon  such  conditions  escape  is 
hopeless.  It  will  be  recognized  that  this  effect  is  an- 
alogous to  the  office  of  the  law  in  producing  the 
knowledge  that  no  man  can  be  saved  by  works. 

Such  a  way  of  escape  as  is  thus  felt  to  be  needed  is 
offered  by  the  Shin  sect  of  Buddhists.  Nothing  can 
be  imagined  more  contradictory  to  the  original  spirit 
of  Buddhism  than  this  doctrine,  which  is  nevertheless 
accepted  by  the  most  numerous,  wealthy  and  progres- 
sive section  of  Japanese  Buddhism.  This  sect  teaches 
the  doctrine  of  Amida.  The  Rev.  Arthur  Lloyd,  of 
Tokyo,  who  has  made  an  especial  study  of  this  sect, 
says: 

"Amida  is  the  ONE  BUDDHA,  a  Being  of  infinite  life  and 
light,  without  beginning  of  life  or  end  of  days.  Countless  ages 
ago  he,  out  of  His  mercy,  became  man,  and  in  his  human  form 
and  for  man  he  undertook  austerities  and  penances,  until  he 
was  able  as  man  to  return  to  that  glorified  state  from  which 
he  had  descended.  But  before  returning,  he  registered  a  vow 
not  to  accept  his  glory  until  he  had  worked  out  a  way  of  salva- 
tion for  mankind,  an  easy  way,  which  should  not  depend  on 
man's  individual  exertions.  Having  made  this  vow,  he  estab- 
lished a  Paradise,  and  decreed  that  faith  in  his  name  and 
vow  should  suffice  to  enable  the  greatest  sinner  to  enter  and 
be  saved." 

Mr.  Lloyd  is  making  some  very  interesting  investi- 
gations in  regard  to  the  origin  of  this  faith,  and  occa- 
sionally publishes  the  results.  So  far  as  he  has  gone 
he  regards  it  as  probable,  although  not  yet  certain,  that 
this  Amida  doctrine  is  of  Christian  origin,  and  that 
Amida  is  but  another  name  for  Christ.  He  says  that 
the  earliest  books  in  which  it  is  found  are  from  the 


CONDITIONS  IN  JAPAN  43 

year  A.  D.  147,  and  that  it  reached  China,  not  from 
India,  but  from  Central  Asia. 

Buddhist  worship  is  conducted  with  gorgeous  rites 
and  ceremonies,  including  the  use  of  incense  and  can- 
dles, and  the  adoration  of  relics.  Preaching  services, 
Sunday  Schools  and  Young  Men's  Buddhist  Associa- 
tions, and  even  revival  meetings  are  characteristic  of 
modern  Japanese  Buddhism. 

As  an  organization,  with  its  monks,  nuns  and  hier- 
archy, and  especially  its  parish  system,  by  which  it 
reaches  almost  every  hamlet  and  home.  Buddhism  is 
very  strong.  It  is  not  supported  by  the  government, 
but  does  not  on  that  account  lack  financial  resources, 
as  the  income  from  endowments,  lands,  and  voluntary 
contributions  is  very  great.  It  is  by  all  odds  the  chief 
opponent  of  Christianity  from  the  standpoint  of  or- 
ganized religion.  It  is  no  mean  opponent,  either.  Its 
strength  has  never  been  tested,  as  no  great  defections 
from  Buddhist  ranks  have  yet  taken  place  directly  in 
consequence  of  mission  work.  Our  converts  have 
come,  for  the  most  part,  from  classes  over  whom  the 
Buddhist  priests  had  no  influence. 

It  must  not  be  understood,  however,  that  these  two 
systems,  Shinto  and  Buddhism,  are  considered  by  the 
Japanese  to  be  mutually  exclusive,  or  even  that  the  un- 
educated clearly  distinguish  between  them.  Even  such 
a  man  as  Prof.  Kume,  of  the  Imperial  University,  in- 
sists that  he  does  not  believe  in  the  one  to  the  exclusion 
of  the  other.  In  public  festivals  he  is  a  Shintoist,  and 
at  funeral  services  a  Buddhist.  Prof.  Basil  Hall 
Chamberlain  says,  in  speaking  of  the  pilgrims  who 


44         MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

visit  famous  shrines  in  great  crowds  each  year,  that 
they  do  not  so  much  as  realize  that  Buddhism  and 
Shintoism  are  two  separate  cults.  Moreover,  mingled 
with  both  of  them  is  a  mass  of  superstition  concerning 
fetishes,  charms,  amulets,  witchcraft^  fox  possession, 
etc.,  that  is  properly  neither  the  one  nor  the  other. 

Let  us  review  the  list  of  religious  ideas  which  these 
systems" present.  They  have  the  ideas  of  the  existence 
of  God,  or  gods ;  prayer,  both  public  and  private ; 
sacred  houses,  places,  times  and  ceremonies;  the  indi- 
vidual existence  and  immortality  of  the  soul,  with  its 
happiness  in  its  future  state  dependent  upon  its  con- 
duct here;  heaven  and  hell,  although  in  crude  form; 
the  worship  of  invisible  spiritual  deities ;  sacrifices ; 
sin  as  defilement  and  as  uncontrolled  selfish  passion ; 
the  consequent  necessity  of  purification  and  salvation, 
and  that  such  salvation  may  be  by  works  or  through 
faith  in  the  merits  of  another. 

These  ideas  certainly  constitute  no  small  spiritual 
inheritance.  So  far  as  they  can  be  separated  from 
accompanying  error,  they  are  a  real  preparation  for 
receiving  the  truths  of  Christianity,  as  no  one  will 
doubt  who  has  heard  a  Japanese  preacher  point  to  the 
ancient  sacrifices,  prayers  and  doctrines  as  proof  that 
what  he  says  has  always  been  acknowledged  in  prin- 
ciple by  the  Japanese  themselves.  The  words  "so  far 
as  they  can  be  separated  from  accompanying  error" 
are  important  to  the  accuracy  of  the  above  statement, 
for  these  primary  religious  ideas  are  not  found  in 
Shinto  and  Buddhism  in  a  pure  state,  but  overlaid 


CONDITIONS  IN  JAPAN  45 

with  a  mass  of  error  that  forms  a  mighty  hindrance  to 
the  reception  of  spiritual  teaching.  As  everywhere,  so 
in  Japan,  the  root  idea  of  polytheism  is  pantheism,  the 
identification  of  the  Creator  with  the  creature,  with 
all  the  loss  of  personality  in  the  deity  and  consequent 
loss  of  personal  responsibility  in  the  worshipper  that 
pantheism  implies.  I  need  not  dwell  upon  this,  as  it 
must  be  evident  to  every  thoughtful  person  what  a 
degradation  of  the  religious  impulse  idolatry  involves. 
This  is  especially  seen  among  the  Japanese  in  the 
weakness  of  their  sense  of  sin.  Although  as  shown 
already,  it  is  to  be  found  in  their  systems,  it  is  rare  to 
find  it  in  individuals.  The  lack  of  conception  of  a  per- 
sonal relation  to  a  personal  God  has  worked  out  this 
result  in  Japan  perhaps  more  perfectly  than  anywhere 
else. 

Moreover,  even  if  we  recognize  the  primary  relig- 
ious ideas  involved  in  these  systems  as  true  and  valu- 
able, it  does  not  follow  that  these  ideas  could  not  have 
been  preserved  except  through  such  a  system,  or  that 
the  existence  of  the  system  is  itself  a  benefit.  On  the 
contrary,  the  partial  satisfaction  of  the  religious  in- 
stinct which  a  system  like  Buddhism  supplies  may  de- 
stroy instead  of  stimulating  the  religious  appetite  for 
the  real  and  complete  truth.  It  is  probable,  for  exam- 
ple, that  the  present  more  rapid  advance  of  Christian- 
ity among  the  Koreans  is  due,  in  part,  at  least,  to  the 
complete  absence  of  Buddhism  in  that  country,  leaving 
the  heart  free  from  any  supposed  satisfaction  of  its 
primary  religious  need. 


46         MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 
III.    Moral  Conditions. 

In  turning  now  to  consider  the  moral  ideas  and 
practices  of  the  Japanese,  we  must  guard  ourselves 
against  the  danger  of  looking  for  anything  strange  or 
striking  in  such  a  sphere.  Primary  moral  ideas  are 
everywhere  the  same.  They  are  human  rather  than 
national  or  racial.  There  are  certain  differences  be- 
tween the  morality  of  one  country  and  another,  and 
jiaturally  these  differences  receive  the  greatest  atten- 
tion in  any  discussion  of  the  subject,  but  in  point  of 
fact  the  resemblances  are  always  much  more  profound 
and  significant  than  the  differences.  The  sources  of 
Japanese  morality,  or,  rather,  the  formulations  of  it — 
for  apart  from  the  Bible  the  source  of  moral  knowl- 
edge is  everywhere  the  revelation  of  God's  will  in  the 
conscience — are  to  be  found  in  the  two  religions  men- 
tioned and  in  the  two  moral  codes,  Confucianism  and 
Bushido,  or  the  code  of  knightly  honor.  Bushido  is 
really  nothing  new.  Its  sources  are  to  be  found  in 
Shinto,  Buddhism  and  Confucianism,  with  the  em- 
phasis laid  upon  such  virtues  as  naturally  come  to  the 
front  under  a  system  of  military  feudalism,  such  as 
existed  in  Japan  from  the  twelfth  century  to  the  be- 
ginning of  the  present  era. 

From  the  great  Chinese  teachers,  for  the  general 
term  "Confucianism"  includes  the  teachings  of  Men- 
cius  as  well  as  those  of  Confucius,  the  Japanese 
learned  a  system  of  moral  philosophy  complete  in  it- 
self, depending  upon  no  religion  to  give  it  sanction  and 
power.    Five  relations  of  men  in  the  social  order  are 


CONDITIONS  IN  JAPAN  47 

distinguished:  those  of  ruler  and  subject,  father  and 
son,  elder  brothers  and  younger  brothers,  husbands 
and  wives,  and  friends.  Upon  these  five  relations 
Confucius  builds  his  moral  system,  which  accordingly 
lays  great  emphasis  upon  the  duty  of  reverence  and 
obedience  from  the  lower  to  the  higher.  The  duties 
of  the  higher  ranks  to  the  lower  are  also  recognized, 
but  receive  very  little  emphasis,  at  least,  in  the  Jap- 
anese apprehension  of  the  system.  The  ideal  man  is 
represented  in  the  classics  as  the  "Kunshi,"  or  Super- 
man, the  philosopher,  and  in  extended  conversations 
between  the  master  and  his  disciples,  the  latter  are 
taught  how  the  superior  man  acts  under  different  cir- 
cumstances, and  how  they  should  imitate  him.  In 
point  of  influence,  there  is  no  ethical  system  in  Japan 
to  compare  with  the  teachings  of  these  Chinese 
classics.  They  were  for  centuries  the  chief  text  books 
of  the  nation,  and  are  to-day  the  sources  from  which 
the  teacher  of  morality  in  a  Japanese  school  draws  his 
maxims  and  illustrations.  In  the  famous  Rescript  on 
Education,  issued  in  1889,  their  overwhelming  influ- 
ence is  clearly  seen.  The  sermons  and  lectures  of 
Shinto  and  Buddhist  teachers  are  also  largely  tinged 
with  Confucianism.  That  this  influence  is  a  pervasive 
rather  than  a  formal  or  public  force  is  evident  from 
the  fact  that  there  is  not  to-day  any  magazine  that  can 
be  regarded  as  outright  an  organ  of  Confucianism, 
although  the  Confucian  ideas  are  continually  crop- 
ping out  in  Shinto,  Buddhist,  non-religious,  or  even 
Christian  journals.  Doubtless  the  absence  of  any  Con- 
fucian propaganda  is  primarily  to  be  ascribed  to  the 


48         MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

lack  of  any  Confucian  establishment,  in  the  sense  of 
temples  and  a  priesthood. 

From  or  through  these  different  systems  the  Jap- 
anese have  learned  to  recognize  all  of  the  ordinary 
moral  duties.  So  long  as  we  confine  ourselves  to  the 
outward  conduct,  the  chief,  if  not  the  only,  essential 
difference  between  their  ideas  and  ours  lies  in  the  pro- 
portion and  rank  of  the  virtues. 

In  each  of  the  four  systems  tremendous  emphasis 
is  laid  upon  the  fact  that  duties  arise  from  relations — 
relations  to  other  men,  not  to  God.  Hence  what  the 
superior  demands,  or  what  benefits  the  family  is  duty, 
the  contrary  is  sin.  The  moral  quality  of  an  act  that 
concerns  the  individual  only  is  of  secondary  impor- 
tance. This  is  the  ruling  principle  in  all  but  Buddhism, 
where  it  is  replaced  by  the  duty  of  self-repression, 
not  less  adapted  to  kill  the  feeling  of  individual  moral 
responsibility.  Accordingly,  the  individual  has  little  to 
say.  He  is  swallowed  up  in  the  mass.  He  bows  to  the 
will  of  another,  so  that  the  idea  of  deciding  for  one's 
self  what  is  right  and  doing  that,  in  the  face  of  a  con- 
trary command  from  father  or  mother  or  ruler,  yea, 
of  the  Mikado  himself,  is  utterly  foreign  to  Japanese 
ethics.  This  may  be  the  reason,  as  is  sometimes  urged, 
why  the  supreme  value  which  we  attach  to  the  per- 
sonal virtues  of  truthfulness  and  chastity  is  by  the 
Japanese  accorded  to  the  social  virtues  of  obedience, 
submission  and  loyalty. 

If  it  be  asked  how  far,  with  all  this  moral  teaching, 
the  Japanese  have  succeeded  in  realizing  their  ideals 
in  their  conduct,  and  what  is  now  the  practical  moral- 


CONDITIONS  IN  JAPAN  49 

ity  of  the  people,  we  enter  upon  a  delicate  and  difficult 
subject,  upon  which  the  most  divergent  judgments 
have  been  pronounced,  and  in  regard  to  which  al- 
most any  opinion  can  be  sustained  by  a  fair  degree  of 
evidence.  I  must  be  understood  as  merely  giving  my 
judgment,  a  judgment  not  carelessly  formed,  but  yet, 
in  view  of  the  complicated  nature  of  the  problem  a 
judgment  not  even  remotely  possessing  a  claim  to 
finality. 

There  are  certain  virtues  that  are  very  conspicuous 
Among  the  Japanese.  They  are,  on  the  whole,  cheer- 
ful, gentle,  industrious,  law-abiding,  respectful  and 
kind  to  parents  and  to  the  aged,  mutually  helpful,  and 
polite.  In  some  things  they  are  distinctly  superior  to 
ourselves.  They  are  more  law-abiding.  They  are 
more  patient  and  courteous  in  trying  circumstances. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  not  less  prominent 
vices.  The  two  that  are  most  prominent  are  insincer- 
ity and  unchastity,  using  both  terms  in  the  widest 
sense.  These  are  the  chief  moral  hindrances  to  the 
acceptance  of  the  gospel  by  the  Japanese,  and  they 
are  of  fearful  power.  The  more  I  associate  with  the 
Japanese  and  study  their  writings,  whether  ancient  or 
modern,  the  more  deeply  I  am  impressed  with  their 
undervaluation  of  truth  for  its  own  sake.  It  would 
be  too  much  to  say  that  they  have  no  conscience  about 
lying,  for  they  do  perceive  the  greater  moral  beauty 
and  value  of  the  truth  when  contrasted  directly  and  ab- 
stractly with  falsehood,  with  nothing  to  offset  it,  but  a 
lie  that  seems  to  serve  the  purposes  of  filial  piety,  or 
loyalty,  or  benevolence,  or  religion,  at  once  loses  its 
4 


50         MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

enormity  and  becomes  a  virtue.  Hence  they  are  so 
impregnated  with  the  idea  that  reHgion  is  a  pious 
fraud,  a  He  invented  to  make  men  good,  that  they  find 
it  almost  impossible  to  take  it  seriously.  The  follow- 
ing opinion  has  become  very  prevalent,  which  was  ex- 
pressed by  a  Japanese  writer  in  the  ''J^P^'^  Mail :"  "If 
the  great  men  in  past  ages  professed  faith  in  Chris- 
tianity, it  is  quite  within  the  Hmits  of  probability  that 
they  only  pretended  to  believe  in  it  in  order  to  set  a 
good  example  for  the  lower  classes  to  follow."  That 
the  writer  was  honest  in  making  this  particular  state- 
ment I  have  no  doubt,  but  clearly  he  could  not  get 
such  a  thought  into  his  head  unless  a  profound  and 
habitual  insincerity  pervaded  his  own  life  and  the  so- 
ciety in  which  he  moves.  Such  a  man  has  not  even 
caught  a  glimpse  of  that  enthusiasm  for  truth  which 
animates  Christian  men. 

The  next  great  moral  obstacle  is  the  sexual  impurity 
of  the  country.  In  this  I  refer  not  so  much  to  open 
prostitution  as  to  the  widespread  callousness  with  re- 
gard to  the  moral  evil  of  illegitimate  sexual  inter- 
course, and  the  low  ideas  of  marriage.  Trouble  of 
this  kind  begins  very  early.  In  our  school,  the  stu- 
dents are  from  fourteen  to  twenty  years  of  age,  but 
we  have  to  be  on  our  guard,  not  only  against  self- 
abuse,  but  especially  against  sodomy,  and  numerous 
cases  of  discipline  arise  out  of  this  form  of  impurity, 
as  well  as  out  of  improper  relations  to  women.  In 
society  at  large  co-habitation  without  marriage,  concu- 
binage and  fornication  are  extensively  practiced,  with 
very  little    protest  except    from    Christian    sources. 


CONDITIONS  IN  JAPAN  51 

Other  evils  along  the  same  line  are  the  extreme  lax- 
ity and  prevalence  of  divorce;  the  presence  of  the 
geisha,  or  dancing  girl,  in  well-nigh  all  social  entd- 
tainments,  public  and  private;  unlicensed  prostitution, 
concerning  which  no  figures  can  be  given ;  and  public, 
licensed  prostitution,  of  which  the  published  statistics 
are  sufficiently  appalling. 

In  Tokyo  one  person  in  every  219  of  the  population 
is  a  licensed  prostitute.  In  Osaka  the  proportion  is 
one  in  163,  and  in  Nagasaki  it  is  one  in  76.* 

What  these  figures  mean  becomes  clearer  when  we 
reflect  that  one-half  of  the  population  are  males,  and 
that  of  the  remaining  one-half  only  about  forty  per 
cent,  by  an  extreme  calculation,  are  of  suitable  age. 
It  means,  then,  that  in  the  city  of  Nagasaki  one  wo- 
man in  every  thirteen  or  fourteen  of  suitable  age  is  a 
public  prostitute.  Of  course,  this  is  exceptional.  This 
proportion  is  far  from  holding  for  the  whole  coun- 
try. Nevertheless,  the  country  over,  it  is  so  serious, 
and  the  supply  of  women  willing  to  engage  in  this 
business  is  so  great  that  they  are  exported  in  large 
numbers,  so  that  Japanese  houses  of  prostitution  arc 
found  in  considerable  numbers  in  Siberia,  Manchuria, 
Korea,  in  the  large  cities  of  China,  in  Singapore,  and 
in  Dutch  and  British  India.  A  Japanese  journalist  in- 
formed me  after  an  examination  of  government  rec- 
ords, that  at  the  end  of  1908,  out  of  56,000  Japanese 


*These  are  official  figures,  published  in  the  "Japan  Weekly 
Mail,"  June  25,  1910,  p.  937.  The  figures  there  given  for 
Nagasaki  is  one  in  46,  but  comparison  of  number  of  prostitutes 
with  population  shows  this  to  ba  an  error  for  76. 


52         MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

women  and  girls  in  the  Korean  peninsula,  more  than 
4,000  were  to  be  reckoned  as  either  nominally  or  prac- 
tically prostitutes. 

Any  person  of  a  little  experience  and  moral  insight 
understands  that  such  things  do  not  arise  by  accident, 
but  that  behind  them  lies  a  condition  of  moral  callous- 
ness on  this  particular  point  that  is  a  serious  hindrance 
to  the  gospel. 

The  limits  of  time  do  not  permit  an  adequate  dis- 
cussion of  the  question  whether  the  religious  and 
moral  condition  of  the  Japanese  people  is  advancing 
or  retrograding.  Opinions  in  abundance  could  be 
quoted  from  high  Japanese  authorities  in  support  of 
the  position  that  Shinto  is  no  longer  a  religion,  but 
only  an  elaborate  ceremonial  to  indicate  respect  for 
the  Imperial  house  and  the  national  heroes ;  that 
Buddhism  is  on  its  last  legs,  subject  to  hopeless  de- 
cay; and  that  the  morality  of  the  country  is  rapidly 
declining.  I  am  myself,  however,  unconvinced  on  all 
of  these  points. 

Ten  years  ago  I  was  far  more  confident  in  regard  to 
the  decay  of  Shinto  and  Buddhism  than  I  am  now, 
and,  if  I  mistake  not,  this  is  quite  a  common  experi- 
ence among  the  missionaries.  That  I  am  not  so  sure 
of  it  now  is  due,  in  part,  I  hope,  to  the  more  intimate 
contact  with  the  people  which  I  have  recently  enjoyed 
and  to  a  deeper  insight,  but  is  to  be  ascribed  also,  I 
think,  to  a  real  revival,  both  of  Shinto  and  of  Budd- 
hism during  recent  years.  The  great  victory  over 
Russia,  won,  as  many  believe,  through  the  help  of  the 
Imperial  ancestors,  and  resulting  in  a  number  of  new 


CONDITIONS  IN  JAPAN  53 

additions  to  the  national  Pantheon,  has  done  much  to 
strengthen  Shinto.  The  evidences  of  an  increasing 
interest  in  Buddhism  and  of  greater  activity  in  Budd- 
hist circles  are  also  too  numerous  and  patent  to  be  ig- 
nored. The  impulse  to  a  revival  of  Buddhism  has  no 
doubt  come  largely  from  the  Christian  movement  and 
results  from  a  deeper  interest  in  religion  as  such.  So 
far  as  this  is  the  case,  it  must  eventually  work  out 
for  good.  What  it  will  lead  to  we  cannot  at  present 
say,  except  that  Buddhism  still  abides  in  its  strength 
and  may  prove  itself,  in  the  next  generation,  to  be  a 
much  more  formidable  antagonist  than  has  hitherto 
been  supposed. 

As  to  the  moral  decline,  I  am  more  inclined  to  agree 
with  the  prevalent  opinion,  not  only  because  this  opin- 
ion is  supported  by  many  facts  in  the  literature  and 
life  of  the  people,  but  also  on  a  priori  grounds.  There 
are  certain  causes  at  work  in  Japan  which  can  hardly 
have  any  other  effect  than  to  break  down  both  the  re- 
ligious beliefs  and  the  moral  standards  of  the  people. 

The  first  of  these  forces  is  the  commercial  and  ma- 
terial occidental  form  of  civilization  with  which  Japan 
is  now  coming  into  such  intimate  contact.  There  has 
been  a  mighty  upheaval  in  Japan  within  the  last  forty 
years.  Ancient  landmarks  in  society  and  government 
have  been  removed.  New  industries,  laws,  opportuni- 
ties, ideas,  and  customs  have  come  in.  The  ancestral 
moral  and  religious  landmarks  have  been  in  many 
minds  removed  with  the  rest.  When  we  remember 
how  many  people  base  their  morality  rather  upon 
the  custom  of  the  community  or  circle  within  which 


54         MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

they  move  than  upon  principle,  we  cannot  help  antici- 
pating that  in  a  country  where  almost  everything  is 
in  a  state  of  flux,  morality  will  suffer. 

Further,  the  commercial  progress  of  Japan  has 
greatly  increased  her  available  wealth.  Thus  thou- 
sands have  the  means  for  the  gratification  of  their 
lusts  who  lacked  opportunity  before.  What  can  this 
result  in  but  an  increase  of  moral  evil  ? 

Finally,  a  very  powerful  influence  in  the  same  di- 
rection is  the  system  of  education,  both  in  its  higher 
and  lower  departments.  The  increase  of  the  common 
schools  has  resulted  in  a  rapid  increase  of  intelligence 
among  the  people.  Intelligence  is  not  inconsistent 
with  Christianity,  perhaps  not  with  some  forms  of 
Buddhism,  but  it  is  utterly  inconsistent  with  a  beUef 
in  Buddhism  and  Shinto  as  known  to  the  odinary  per- 
son in  Japan.  The  consequence  is  that,  knowing  no 
other  religion,  they  identify  religion  with  idolatry  and 
superstition,  and  having  become  too  intelligent  to  be- 
lieve in  these,  they  become  dead  to  religious  feeling 
or  conviction.  In  this  way  the  common  schools, 
merely  by  teaching  the  elements  of  knowledge,  do 
their  part  towards  destroying  the  religious  life  of  the 
nation.  This  process  is  completed  in  the  higher 
schools,  where  the  student  is  supplied  with  a  scientific 
defense  of  such  a  position  by  studying  the  agnostic 
philosophy  of  the  day.  Absolute  scepticism  is  in  most 
cases  the  inevitable  result.  To  this  the  educated  Jap- 
anese mind  is  predisposed  by  the  influence  of  Confu- 
cianism, by  the  idea  that  religion  is  a  fraud  to  regu- 
late the  conduct  of  ignorant  men,  and  by  the  lack  of 


CONDITIONS  IN  JAPAN  55 

profound  philosophical  insight  in  the  Japanese  mind, 
a  characteristic  that  is  noticed  by  almost  all  students 
of  the  national  character. 

The  result  is  that  agnosticism  is  at  present  every- 
where triumphant  in  Japan. 

I  need  not  take  the  trouble  to  point  out  how  com- 
pletely this  agnostic  and  materialistic  philosophy  cuts 
away  the  ground  from  under  the  moral  law  as  well  as 
the  religious  belief.  Japanese  educators  teach  the 
old  moral  maxims  diligently,  but  they  are  bound  to 
discover,  and  some  of  them  are  already  discovering, 
that  their  philosophy  is  stronger  than  their  maxims. 

Two  results  already  appear.  On  the  one  hand, 
some  of  the  noblest  natures  are  driven  to  despair.  The 
suicide  of  a  certain  Fujimura  Misao,  in  1903,  who  was 
driven  to  despair  by  the  study  of  philosophy  was  in  it- 
self startling  enough,  but  his  example  was  so  frequent- 
ly followed  that  the  police  were  obliged  to  place  senti- 
nels near  the  spot  where  he  died  to  prevent  similar 
suicides,  and  in  spite  of  this  precaution  scores  of 
young  men  have  cut  short  their  own  lives  because 
their  philosophy  had  left  them  no  sufficient  cause  to 
live. 

The  other  result,  occurring,  of  course,  with  infinite- 
ly greater  frequency,  is  that  the  lusts  of  the  flesh  pre- 
vail over  the  conscience,  unenlightened  and  unin- 
structed  by  any  adequate  religious  principles,  and 
that  the  life  which,  throwing  off  all  restraint,  gratifies 
only  its  own  desires  is  not  only  led,  but  is  justified  as 
the  only  reasonable  and  proper  course.  Hence  arises 
the  influence  of  what  is  called  in  Japan  "Naturalism," 


56         MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

which  is  hardly  more  than  another  name  for  the  prin- 
ciple of  lust,  deliberately  adopted  and  philosophically 
defended.  Many  educators  have  expressed  themselves 
as  greatly  alarmed  over  the  moral  decline  of  young 
men  and  women,  but  they  do  not  seem  to  recognize 
the  fact  that  the  Imperial  University  sows  the  seed 
from  which  the  police  courts  reap  the  harvest. 

We  have  finished  our  brief  and  necessarily  very  in- 
adequate review  of  the  conditions  under  which  the 
missionary  purpose  must  be  accomplished  in  modern 
Japan.  No  one  can  thoughtfully  consider  all  the  ele- 
ments that  go  to  make  up  the  social,  political,  religious 
and  moral  life  of  the  people  of  Japan  to-day  without 
feeling  that,  although  the  outward  conditions  are  fav- 
orable, the  inner  conditions  make  it  a  very  difficult  mis- 
sion field.  So  it  is  now  generally  regarded.  Some 
writers  have  even  pronounced  it  the  most  difficult  field 
of  all.  Certain  it  is  that  the  problem  presented  here 
has  no  parallel  in  the  history  of  the  church  since  the 
evangelization  of  the  Roman  Empire,  if,  indeed,  that 
be  a  true  parallel.  Since  that  time  the  message  of  the 
gospel  has  always  been  borne  to  uncivilized  races,  or, 
at  least,  to  races  on  a  lower  plane  of  advancement 
than  the  missionaries  were.  This  is  not  so  with  us. 
We  come  as  equals,  not  as  superiors,  and  we  come  to  a 
nation  armed  against  our  persuasions  by  the  most 
modern  intellectual  weapons  taken  from  the  arsenals 
of  western  infidelity.  Need  we  wonder  if  many  a  by- 
stander asks  whether  there  is  any  chance  of  success 
for  Christianity  in  Japan?  Under  God,  it  is  ours  to 
answer  that  question.     If  we  are  alert  and  faithful. 


CONDITIONS  IN  JAPAN  57 

we  need  not  doubt  the  result,  but  certainly  the  victory 
will  not  be  obtained  without  a  mighty  exertion  of  the 
resources  of  the  churches  in  America.  To  secure  this 
it  is  essential  that  the  magnitude  of  the  task  be  real- 
ized, and  that  the  idea  that  the  work  in  Japan  will 
soon  be  finished  should  be  utterly  put  away. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  prize  is  worth  all  its  costs. 
Where  else  can  we  find  a  nobler  people  looking  for- 
ward to  a  greater  future?  The  words  of  Milton  m 
regard  to  the  English  people  ring  out  as  if  written  for 
the  Japanese  of  to-day. 

"Consider  what  a  nation  it  is,  a  nation  not  slow  and  dull, 
but  of  quick,  ingenious,  and  piercing  spirit;  acute  to  invent, 
subtle  and  sinewy  to  discourse,  not  beneath  the  reach  of  any 
point  the  highest  that  human  capacity  can  soar  to.  The  shop 
of  war  hath  not  more  anvils  and  hammers  there,  working  to 
fashion  out  the  plates  and  instruments  of  armed  Justice  in 
defense  of  beleaguered  Truth,  than  there  be  pens  and  heads 
there,  sitting  by  studious  lamps,  musing,  searching,  revolving 
new  notions  and  ideas  wherewith  to  present,  as  with  their 
homage  and  their  fealty,  the  approaching  reformation;  others 
as  fast  reading,  trying  all  things,  assenting  to  the  force  of 
reason  and  convincement. 

"What  would  a  man  require  more  from  a  nation  so  pliant 
and  so  prone  to  seek  after  knowledge?  What  wants  there  to 
such  a  towardly  and  pregnant  soil  but  wise  and  faithful  labor- 
ers to  make  a  knowing  people,  a  nation  of  prophets,  of  sages, 
and  of  worthies?  We  reckon  more  than  five  months  yet  to 
harvest,  there  need  not  be  five  weeks,  had  we  but  eyes  to  lift 
up:  the  fields  are  white  already." 


CHAPTER  III. 

The  Organization  of  the  Christian  Church,  the 

First  Great  Step  in  the  Accomplishment  of 

Our  Purpose. 

In  our  first  chapter  we  saw  that  the  grand  object  of 
missions  is  not  merely  to  evangeHze  a  country,  but  to 
organize  within  it  a  permanent  agency  for  keeping  the 
truth  before  the  people,  an  agency  so  well  established 
that  we  can  presently  withdraw,  in  the  confident  ex- 
pectation that  future  generations  no  less  than  the  pres- 
ent will  have  the  blessings  of  the  gospel.  There  can 
be  no  doubt  as  to  which  form  such  a  permanent 
agency  should  assume.  The  Christian  church  is  the 
divinely  ordained  organization  for  the  preservation 
and  propagation  of  the  gospel.  To  her  are  committed 
the  oracles  of  God,  to  her  is  given  the  task  of  preach- 
ing the  gospel  of  a  risen  Lord  to  the  ends  of  the 
earth.  She  is  "the  pillar  and  ground  of  the  faith," 
for  without  the  organization  of  the  church  that  truth 
would  be  lost  to  the  world  in  a  single  generation. 

The  church,  in  her  essential  life,  is  one,  as  her  task 
is  one;  but  if  we  hold  the  conception  of  the  church 
that  has  always  prevailed  among  the  Protestant,  and 
especially  among  the  Reformed  believers,  it  is  evident 
that  churches  established  in  two  very  distant  countries 
or  among  two  diverse  races  can  do  their  work  best 
when  independent  of  one  another,  and  that  such  inde- 
pendence is  not  in  conflict  with  their  essential  one-ness. 


THE  FIRST  GREAT  STEP  59 

For  this  reason  the  Reformed  Church  in  America  felt 
it  no  offense  to  be  distinct  from  the  Reformed  Church 
in  the  Netherlands,  and  even  the  Episcopal  bodies  in 
England  and  in  the  United  States  consider  it  unde- 
sirable to  be  one  in  outward  form.  There  will  be  no 
question,  then,  that  in  lands  like  China  and  Japan  the 
church  ought,  as  soon  as  she  has  gained  sufficient 
strength,  to  be  organized  on  a  basis  of  absolute  inde- 
pendence of  the  parent  churches  in  America  and  Eng- 
land, although  in  cordial  relations  of  fellowship  with 
them.  This  is  therefore  the  principle  upon  which  the 
chief  missions  in  Japan  are  proceeding. 

As  it  is  impossible  to  follow  out  the  history  of  all 
the  different  branches  of  the  church  in  this  lecture,  I 
invite  your  attention. 

I.  To  a  brief  review  of  the  development  of  the 
church  at  large. 

II.  To  a  more  particular  examination  of  the  body 
resulting  from  the  labors  of  the  Presbyterian  and  Re- 
formed missionaries. 

III.  To  a  few  remarks  on  the  present  condition  of 
the  church  and  its  peculiar  problems. 

I.  The  Development  of  the  Church  at  Large. 

We  may  pass  rapidly  over  the  years  before  1872, 
the  story  of  which  is  doubtless  famiHar.  It  was  a 
period  of  hard  and  faithful  labor,  with  considerable 
danger,  but  the  fruits  were  not  at  once  apparent.  Here 
and  there  a  single  convert  gave  no  hint  of  the  great 
blessing  to  come,  but  the  publication  of  Dr.  Hepburn's 
Japanese  dictionary,  in  1867,  was  a  great  and  perma- 
nent gain.    Three  events  mark  the  close  of  this  period. 


6o         MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

the  publication  of  the  Gospel  of  Matthew  in  the  ver- 
nacular, in  1872;  the  organization  of  the  first  Chris- 
tian church,  in  the  following  year ;  and  the  inaugura- 
tion of  practical  religious  liberty  after  the  removal  of 
the  public  anti-Christian  notices,  in  1873.  The  way 
was  now  fairly  open  for  advance. 

The  advance,  when  it  came,  was  truly  remarkable. 
Including  both  1872  and  1889,  we  have  a  period  of 
eighteen  years,  at  the  outset  of  which -there  were  no 
churches  and  not  more  than  a  dozen  converts,  while 
at  the  close  there  were  no  less  than  29,000  believers 
organized  in  274  churches.  The  average  annual  in- 
crease for  the  whole  period  amounts  thus  to  more  than 
fifteen  hundred,  while  the  progression  is  by  geometri- 
cal ratio,  for  the  figures  show  that  from  1877  to  1889, 
a  period  of  twelve  years,  the  number  of  converts  dou- 
bled every  three  years. 

In  1877  there  were  1617  believers. 

In  1880  there  were  3256  believers. 

In  1883  there  were  5591  beHevers. 

In  1886  there  were  13269  believers.. 

In  1889  there  were  28977  believers. 

The  more  one  thinks  of  this,  the  more  remarkable  it 
appears.  It  would  be  interesting  to  know  how  fre- 
quently in  the  history  of  the  Christian  church  a  simi- 
lar rate  of  progress  was  maintained  in  a  heathen  coun- 
try for  such  a  space  of  time.  There  are  certain  rea- 
sons connected  with  the  state  of  Japanese  society  at 
that  time  that  can  be  offered  in  partial  explanation  of 
this  phenomenon.  These  are  the  natural  curiosity  of 
many  to  hear  what  the  Christian  religion  was,  espec- 


THE  FIRST  GREAT  STEP  6i 

iaily  the  interest  attaching  to  something  so  long  and  so 
strictly  prohibited  by  the  Tokugawa  government, 
which  had  been  driven  from  power;  the  exaggerated 
value  put  upon  all  things  Western  at  that  time;  the 
desire  of  many  young  men  to  learn  the  English  lan- 
guage, which  brought  them  under  the  influence  of  the 
missionaries ;  and,  most  of  all,  the  existence  in  socie- 
ty of  a  large  class,  the  socalled  "samurai"  or  literary 
and  military  class,  to  whom  the  new  order  of  affairs 
meant  a  complete  revolution  in  private  as  well  as  in 
public  interests. 

The  Samurai  were  not  generally  Buddhists,  they 
were  trained  to  take  a  lively  interest  in  the  discussion 
of  moral  and  intellectual  matters,  and  most  of  them 
had  leisure  to  attend  to  such  discussion.  Accordingly, 
for  a  time,  it  became  a  sort  of  fashion  with  them  to  at- 
tend meetings  and  in  other  ways  inquire  into  Chris- 
tianity. In  this  process,  many  were  converted.  So 
prominent  were  they  and  so  completely  did  they  shut 
out  of  consideration  the  rest  of  the  population  that  al- 
most everything  hitherto  written  in  regard  to  the  ideas, 
habits,  and  character  of  the  Japanese  proceeds  upon 
the  supposition  that  the  Samurai  are  the  Japanese  peo- 
ple. For  a  long  time  no  one  seemed  to  notice  that  be- 
neath this  upper  crust  slumbered  the  majority  of  the 
nation,  an  inert  mass,  subject,  in  their  inner  life,  to 
no  such  mercurial  changes,  to  be  moved,  if  moved  at 
all,  only  by  the  much  slower  processes  of  education 
and  evangelization. 

The  situation  v^as  therefore  comparable  to  a  mass 
of   forest  wood,  consisting  almost  entirely  of  heavy 


62         MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

green  logs,  but  containing  also  a  small  quantity  of  dry 
brush.  When  the  torch  is  applied,  such  a  pile  of  wood 
will  take  fire  readily  and  burn  with  a  fierceness  that 
suggests  to  an  observer  the  speedy  consumption  of  the 
whole  mass.  In  a  short  time,  however,  the  brush  is 
burnt  out,  and  the  logs  are  seen  to  have  been  barely 
touched.  This  illustration  gives  one  a  fairly  correct 
idea  of  what  took  place  in  Japan  during  the  eighties. 
While  we  must  recognize  these  various  elements  in 
the  situation,  however,  they  supply  no  explanation  of 
how  the  torch  came  to  be  applied.  This,  the  spiritual 
element  in  the  work,  is  after  all  the  most  important. 
'This  is  found  in  the  remarkable  out-pouring  of  the 
fHoly  Spirit  that  began  about  1883.  The  result  was  a 
'  series  of  revivals,  that  spread  to  all  parts  of  the  coun- 
try, and  lasted  for  several  years. 

Dr.  Ritter,  in  his  "History  of  Protestant  Missions 
in  Japan"  gives  an  extensive  review  of  these  revivals, 
a  review  that  is  all  the  more  interesting  because  the 
learned  Dr.  is  not  in  hearty  sympathy  with  them.  In 
summing  up  he  says : 

"Let  us  once  more  survey  the  whole  in  order  to  arrive  as 
nearly  as  possible  at  an  impartial  judgment.  As  constantly 
recurring  features  there  stand  out  prominently:  a  strong  real- 
ization of  the  sinner's  lost  condition;  confession  of  sin  and 
prayer  for  forgiveness  with  tears  and  strong  excitement,  fre- 
quently in  the  presence  of  the  assembled  congregation;  peace 
and  joy  in  the  consciousness  of  the  forgiveness  effected 
through  the  Holy  Ghost ;  the  asserted  impartation  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  to  individuals  and  to  whole  assemblies,  at  times  sud- 
denly perceptible.  A  growing  interest  in  Bible  study  is  also 
mentioned  as  a  happy  result.    Another  striking  manifestation 


THE  FIRST  GREAT  STEP  63 

was  a  great  zeal  on  the  part  of  those  reached  by  the  revival 
in  telling  others  of  their  own  inner  experiences  and  in  laboring 
for  their  conversion.  There  was  also  a  desire  on  the  part  of 
those  not  yet  reached  to  be  brought  under  Christian  influence, 
and,  moreover,  constant  prayer  for  revivals  and  for  the  out- 
pouring of  the  Holy  Spirit.  Revivals  also  occurred  in  women's 
meetings  and  in  boys'  and  girls'  meetings  down  to  children  of 
most  tender  years." 

Further  evidence  of  the  remarkable  character  of 
those  years  in  Japan,  especially  of  the  latter  half  of 
the  eighties,  is  supplied  by  the  missionary  magazines 
of  the  time  and  by  the  reports  of  the  Council  of  Mis- 
sions. These  latter  are  very  condensed  summaries  of 
the  work  of  the  year,  but  still  they  contain  on  every 
page  notices  of  churches  organized  within  a  few 
months  of  the  beginning  of  work  in  those  communi- 
ties, or  interesting  accounts  of  notable  conversions,  ac- 
companied with  surrender  of  property  for  the  use  of 
the  gospel,  especially  property  previously  used  for  the 
manufacture  of  liquor  or  other  immoral  purposes. 

One  great  advantage  of  the  rapid  increase  of  con- 
verts was  that  the  organization  of  the  church  could 
now  be  proceeded  with.  By  the  end  of  the  period  the 
Christian  churches  of  Japan  were  an  established  fact. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  exaggerated  ideas  as  to  the  fu- 
ture prosperity  of  missions  in  Japan,  to  which  I  al- 
luded in  the  first  lecture,  were  also  born  out  of  the 
circumstances  of  the  time.  The  idea  that  mission- 
aries could  soon  be  withdrawn  was  based  partly  upon 
a  faulty  theory  of  the  missionary  purpose,  but  this 
fact  escaped  detection  so  long  as  Japanese  and  foreign 


64         MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

workers,  as  well  as  the  church  at  home,  were  intoxi- 
cated with  their  wonderful  success.  We  smile  sadly 
now  at  their  enthusiastic  predictions,  but  he  must  be 
a  cold-hearted  missionary  who  can  read  the  accounts 
in  contemporary  sources  without  wishing  that  he  had 
been  there.  If  he  had  been,  no  doubt  he  would  have 
been  as  much  deceived  by  the  prospect  as  the  rest. 

The  fact  remains,  however,  that  they  were  deceived, 
and  that  completely. 

The  Thirteenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Council  of 
Missions,  covering  the  year  1889,  records  a  decrease 
in  the  number  of  baptisms  and  of  the  contributions. 
This  was  the  beginning  of  what  we  call  "The  Great 
Reaction."  The  causes  were  very  various  and  com- 
plex, too  much  so  to  permit  of  their  discussion  in  a 
condensed  lecture.  They  were  of  a  nature  partly  sec- 
ular and  partly  religious.  The  secular  causes  include 
the  refusal  of  Western  governments,  for  a  long  time, 
to  revise  certain  treaties,  the  growing  influence  of  the 
educational  system,  and  the  remarkable  advance  of 
the  country  in  every  respect,  with  the  natural  feeling 
of  self-satisfaction  thereby  engendered,  so  that  the 
Japanese  to  some  extent  lost  the  very  docility  to  which 
they  owed  their  progress.  The  more  directly  religious 
and  moral  causes  include  the  unavoidable  reaction  that 
follows  every  revival,  the  introduction  into  the  coun- 
try of  all  kinds  of  unbelief,  both  openly, — in  the  ag- 
nostic teaching  of  the  University  or  the  translations 
of  all  kinds  of  agnostic  literature, — and  under  cover 
of  the  Christian  name.  The  Hberal  German  theolo- 
gians entered  the  field  in  1885  and  the  Unitarians  in 


THE  FIRST  GREAT  STEP  65 

1888.  Perhaps  it  is  hardly  fair  to  name  these  two  to- 
gether without  recognizing  the  fact  that  the  Evangel- 
ical Protestant  Missionary  Society  must  be  admitted 
to  stand  for  many  of  the  fundamental  doctrines  of  the 
faith,  while  Unitarianism,  at  least  as  it  appears  in 
Japan,  has  no  just  title  to  be  called  a  religious,  not  to 
say  a  Christian  system.  Other  causes  were  the  issue 
of  a  rescript  on  education  by  the  Emperor,  interpreted, 
— I  think  mis-interpreted — by  one  of  the  most  famous 
professors  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  it  appear  an  act 
of  disloyalty  for  any  Japanese  to  become  a  Christian; 
the  prevalence  of  liberal  views  among  missionaries  of 
the  regular  boards ;  and  the  return  to  Japan  of  young 
Japanese  who  had  studied  the  Higher  Criticism  and 
other  similar  destructive  theories  at  American  univer- 
sities. All  this  led  to  much  discussion  and  controversy. 
The  most  serious  conflicts  of  faith  were  thrust  upon 
the  infant  church.  It  was  like  Hercules,  obliged  in 
his  very  cradle  to  give  battle  for  his  life. 

The  result  of  all  these  component  forces  was  that 
we  saw  dark  days  during  the  decade  from  1890  to 
1900.  We  had  a  hard  struggle  to  hold  our  own.  The 
spiritual  life  of  the  church  grew  cold,  evangelistic  zeal 
left  the  believers,  Sunday  observance  declined,  contri- 
butions fell  off,  and  the  lives  of  many  Christians  were 
a  disgrace  to  their  profession.  Consequently  the  num- 
erical advance  during  that  period  was  very  slow  in- 
deed. This  was  not  so  much  from  lack  of  baptisms 
as  from  heavy  losses  through  removals,  withdrawals, 
and  discipline.  I  have  not  the  figures  at  hand  for  the 
whole  Protestant  body,  but  in  the  Church  of  Christ 
5 


^         MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

alone  the  admissions  on  confession  for  the  ten  years 
from  1890  to  1899,  both  inclusive,  were  about  6,600, 
while  the  net  increase  for  the  entire  ten  years  was 
about  600.    Out  of  6,600,  6,000  had  disappeared ! 

But  we  should  make  a  great  mistake  if  we  failed  to 
remember  that  in  spiritual,  no  less  than  in  temporal  mat- 
ters, "sickness  and  health,  barren  and  fruitful  seasons, 
prosperity  and  adversity,  come  to  us,  not  by  chance, 
but  from  God's  fatherly  hand."  While  we  recognize 
the  secondary  causes  we  have  enumerated,  we  know 
perfectly  well  that  He  had  forces  in  reserve  that  could 
have  neutralized  them  all  and  made  the  victory  of  the 
church  to  proceed  unchecked.  The  reason  why  He 
did  not  do  it  is  simply  that  it  was  better  not  to  do  it. 
Certain  benefits  were  ultimately  to  accrue  to  the 
church  and  its  work,  and  for  this  reason  trial  was 
permitted  to  come.  We  can  not  yet  point  out  all  the 
advantages  the  reaction  contained,  but  we  may  discern 
some  of  them.  The  first  of  these  was  the  sifting  of 
the  membership.  During  the  period  of  rapid  growth 
not  a  few  had  gotten  into  the  church  who  did  not  be- 
long there.  Their  leaving  was  a  benefit  to  the  body. 
They  went  out  from  us  because  they  were  not  of  us. 

It  was  also  a  great  benefit  that  the  church  was  for  a 
time  less  in  the  public  eye.  Retirement  into  compara- 
tive obscurity  gave  it  time  to  grow  inwardly,  as  when 
a  gardener  covers  the  leaves  of  a  plant  that  in  the 
darkness  its  roots  may  go  down  deeper  into  the  soil. 
Again,  on  account  of  the  slower  growth  the  tendency 
of  the  missionaries  to  leave  things  prematurely  in  the 
hands  of  the  Japanese  church  was  checked.    They  de- 


THE  FIRST  GREAT  STEP  67 

voted  themselves  in  increasing  numbers  and  with  re- 
newed zeal  to  the  work  of  evangelization,  which  in  the 
time  of  greatest  prosperity  had  been  largely  left  to 
the  native  preachers.  They  made  a  deeper  study,  also, 
of  the  principles  of  missions  and  of  the  spiritual  need 
of  the  Japanese  people,  a  study  that  led  to  important 
and  salutary  results. 

The  decade  1900  to  1909  opened  with  a  wide- 
spread special  evangelistic  effort  inaugurated  by  the 
Evangelical  Alliance.  A  large  work  was  done  all 
over  the  country  and  it  was  evident  that  the  Chris- 
tian forces  were  much  larger  and  better  organized 
than  had  ever  been  the  case  before.  In  some  places 
revivals  were  reported,  and  a  number  of  remarkable 
conversions  took  place.  On  the  whole,  however,  the 
immediate  and  visible  results  were  small,  and  it  did 
not,  as  many  hoped,  inaugurate  a  new  period  in  the 
evangelization  of  Japan.  The  real  revival  power  was 
lacking.  Consequently  the  general  character  of  the 
advance  during  this  decade  has  remained  the  same  as 
in  the  one  before,  viz.,  slow  progress  gained  at  the  ex- 
pense of  much  hard  work.  In  view  of  the  increase  in 
the  number  of  workers,  both  native  and  foreign,  their 
better  distribution  throughout  the  country,  their  im- 
proved qualifications  from  every  point  of  view,  and 
their  riper  experience,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  far  more 
work  and  better  directed  work  has  been  done  in  the 
past  ten  than  in  the  previous  twenty  years ;  and  yet 
the  tabulated  statistical  results  are  disappointing.  The 
increase  in  communicant  membership  during  the  de- 
cade was  nearly  nineteen  hundred  per  year  as  against 


68         MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

nearly  thirteen  hundred  a  year  from  1889  to  1899, 
which  yields  almost  exactly  the  same  percentage,  44 
or  45  per  cent,  of  increase  in  ten  years. 

The  internal  growth  of  the  church  in  this  decade, 
however,  has  been  very  marked.  The  Christian  schools, 
both  for  young  men  and  young  women,  have  made 
immense  gains,  self-support  has  made  great  strides 
forward,  Sunday  School  work,  Christian  literature, 
hymnology,  publication,  and  Bible  distribution  have  all 
made  notable  progress.  These  various  kinds  of  growth 
ought  sooner  or  later  to  express  themselves  in  rapidly 
increasing  church  attendance  and  numerous  conver- 
sions, and  we  may  not  doubt  that  such  a  time  will 
come,  but  for  the  present  we  have  to  confess  that 
there  is  less  apparent  progress  than  could  be  desired. 

One  encouraging  item  we  should  not  omit  to  notice, 
however,  and  that  is  that  we  are  constantly  gaining 
on  the  population,  and  that  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the 
population  increases  at  the  rate  of  half  a  million  souls 
a  year.  In  1888  there  was  one  communicant  Protestant 
Christian  to  1661  of  the  population;  in  1898  the  pro- 
portion was  1-1067,  and  in  1908  it  was  1-85 1. 

According  to  the  latest  returns,  some  of  the  most 
important  statistical  items  are  as  follows. 

Statistics  of  the  Missionary  Work  in  Japan. 

From  the  "Christian  Movement"  for  1911. 

Communicants,    63,915 

Total    Membership,  including    Probation- 
ers, Baptized  Children,  etc 78,875 


THE  FIRST  GREAT  STEP  69 

Missionaries,  Married  Men,   289 

Ditto,  Unmarried,    36 

Ditto,  Unmarried  Women,    ^44 

Total  Missionaries,  including  Wives 958 

Organized   Churches,    586 

Self-supporting  Churches,    173 

Contributions  for  all  purposes,  Yen  300,367  $150,183.50 

The  Church  of  Christ  in  Japan. 

Among  the  different  ecclesiastical  bodies,  we,  as 
members  of  the  Reformed  Church,  are  particularly 
concerned  with  what  is  known  as  the  Church  of  Christ 
in  Japan,  the  fruit  of  the  labors,  gifts  and  prayers  of 
the  Reformed  and  Presbyterian  Churches  in  America 
and  Scotland.  It  is  not  only  in  the  past  that  we  have 
to  do  with  this  church,  but  our  work  for  the  future 
must  be  greatly  influenced  by  our  relations  to  it. 

In  March,  1872,  the  first  church  in  Japan  was  or- 
ganized at  Yokohama,  as  the  result  of  a  special  series 
of  prayer-meetings  of  great  fervor  and  power.  '*It 
consisted  of  nine  students,  partly  pupils  of  the  Rev. 
J.  H.  Ballagh,  of  the  Dutch  Reformed  Church,  who 
were  baptized  on  that  day,  and  of  two  older  Japanese, 
who  had  been  previously  baptized."  Mr.  Ballagh  was 
chosen  pastor  of  this  church,  while  the  two  older  men 
became,  one  an  elder,  the  other  a  deacon.  This  local 
organization  is  now  known  as  the  Kaigan  church.  A 
second  church  was  organized  Sept.  20,  1873,  under  the 
guidance  of  the  Rev.  David  Thompson,  at  Tokyo.  This 
church  was  closely  associated  with  the  one  at  Yoko- 


70         MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

hama,  the  two  meeting  twice  a  year  for  counsel  and 
necessary  action.  This  formed  the  nucleus  of  a  de- 
nomination, to  which  two  other  churches,  one  in  the 
province  of  Ueda,  and  one  at  Nagasaki,  were  added  be- 
fore 1877.  These  four  local  churches  therefore 
formed  "The  Church  of  Christ  in  Japan,"  which  has 
never  had  the  slightest  ecclesiastical  relation  to  any 
foreign  body. 

Five  other  churches,  however,  were  organized  by 
the  Presbyterians,  and  were,  with  the  missionaries 
themselves,  formed  into  a  Presbytery,  according  to  the 
constitution  of  that  church. 

In  1877  all  the  churches  under  the  care  of  the  Amer- 
ican and  Scotch  Presbyterians  united  with  those  es- 
tablished by  the  Reformed  Church  into  one  body,  with 
the  cordial  consent  of  the  authorities  at  home.  The 
rules  of  church  government  were  in  the  main  like 
those  of  the  home  churches,  and  the  standards  of  doc- 
trine were  the  Westminster  Shorter  Catechism,  the 
Heidelberg  Catechism,  the  Westminster  Confession  of 
Faith,  and  the  Canons  of  Dort.  Nine  churches  joined 
in  this  union.  The  number  of  members  was  623.  A 
Presbytery  was  organized,  and  remained  the  govern- 
ing body  until  1881,  when  it  was  divided  into  three, 
and  the  Synod,  already  provided  for  in  the  constitu- 
tion, was  formed.  It  met  in  its  first  session  in  No- 
vember, 1 88 1. 

While  the  churches  were  thus  joined  in  organic  un- 
ion, the  missions  allied  themselves  in  a  council,  al- 
ready several  times  referred  to  in  these  lectures  as 
The  Council  of  Missions.    This  has  annual  meetings, 


THE  FIRST  GREAT  STEP  71 

and  transacts  business  of  common  interest.  Although 
its  decisions  are  advisory  only.  It  has  been  from  the 
beginning  a  body  of  great  influence.  In  1885  the  mis- 
sion of  the  Southern  Presb.  Church,  in  1886  that  of 
the  German  Reformed  Church,  and  in  1889  that  of  the 
Cumberland  Presb.  Church,  joined  the  Council  and 
united  their  efforts  with  those  of  the  Church  of  Christ. 
Thus  was  the  United  Church  of  Christ  in  Japan 
called  into  existence  in  1877,  Presbyterian  in  its  or- 
organization,  and  in  line  with  the  historical  Reformed 
churches  in  its  doctrinal  position.  That  union  is  a 
striking  proof  of  the  fraternal  disposition  of  the  mis- 
sionaries and  of  the  unselfish  purposes  of  the  Pres- 
byterian and  Reformed  churches  of  America  and  Scot- 
land. Seldom  has  the  desire  for  Christian  unity  found 
more  admirable  and  practical  expression. 

Attempted  Union  With  the  Congregational 
Churches. 

This  same  anxiety  to  escape  the  evils  of  sectarian- 
ism, however,  led  both  the  missionaries  and  the  Japa- 
nese into  great  dangers,  for  under  its  influence  they 
were  led  to  attempt  to  unite  also  with  the  Congrega- 
tional churches,  founded  by  the  missionaries  of  the 
American  Board.  After  prolonged  negotiations,  the 
attempt  failed,  chiefly  on  account  of  opposition  among 
the  Congregationalists.  Opposing  articles  appeared  in 
the  "Pacific"  and  in  the  ''Advance";  the  Congrega- 
tional State  Associations  of  California  and  Nebraska 
protested  against  the  proposed  action;  two  missionar- 


72         MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

ies,  the  Revs.  Sidney  L.  Gulick  and  Oramel  H.  Gulick 
wrote  strong  articles  on  the  evils  of  Presbyterianism, 
and  Dr.  Joseph  Nishima  stood  out  steadfastly  against 
it,  even  threatening,  in  case  it  was  carried,  to  with- 
draw from  the  "Doshisha"  and  the  church. 

The  failure  of  this  attempt  at  union  was  deeply  re- 
gretted at  the  time,  but  most  of  the  missionaries  and 
Japanese  ministers  are  satisfied  now  that  we  escaped 
a  great  danger,  for  the  extremely  liberal  teachings  of 
many  missionaries  and  Japanese  in  the  Congregational 
Churches  have  since  that  time  placed  the  difference  be- 
tween them  and  us  in  the  clearest  light.  Unrestrained 
either  by  the  deep  spiritual  Hfe  and  sacred  traditions 
that  have  characterized  the  Congregational  churches 
of  America  on  the  one  hand  or  by  any  ecclesiastical  or 
credal  barriers  on  the  other,  certain  of  the  Congre- 
gational leaders  in  Japan  have  become  notorious  for 
flying  the  Christian  flag  without  any  basis  of  Chris- 
tian truth.  Our  Presbyterian  and  Reformed  work  has 
suflFered  enough  from  the  tendencies  of  the  times.  Had 
the  proposed  union  with  the  Congregationalists  been 
consummated,  the  loss  would  have  been  appalling. 

Constitutional  Position  of  the  Church. 

Closely  associated  with  this  movement  to  unite  with 
the  Congregational  Churches,  and  no  doubt  more  or 
less  affected  by  it,  is  the  subsequent  revision  of  the 
Constitution  and  Confession  of  the  church,  which  was 
completed  in  1890.  The  constitution  then  adopted  is 
still  in  force,  with  certain  amendments.     The  consti- 


THE  FIRST  GREAT  STEP  73 

tution  as  it  now  stands  follows,  in  the  main,  the  ordi- 
nary Presbyterian  lines,  having  the  three  assemblies, 
besides  the  general  church  meeting.  Originally  the 
Synod  was  composed  of  representatives  of  the  Pres- 
byteries, but  within  a  year  or  two  this  has  been 
changed,  so  that  the  churches  elect  their  representa- 
tives directly,  which  makes  of  the  Synod  little  else 
than  a  large  Classis.  This  tendency  has  been  accentu- 
ated by  another  recent  resolution  to  make  the  exam- 
ination and  ordination  of  candidates  for  the  ministry 
the  work  of  the  Synod,  not  of  the  Presbyteries.  By 
the  Synod  is  meant  the  General  Synod,  but  it  is  not  so 
called,  because  there  has  never  been  a  Particular  Syn- 
od. A  peculiar  provision  in  the  church  law  is  that  not 
every  ordained  minister  votes  in  Presbytery,  only 
those  do  so  who  are  installed  pastors  of  churches  or 
professors  in  theological  seminaries  recognized  by  the 
Synod  or  who  have  been  appointed  by  the  Classis  to 
take  charge  of  some  definite  work.  In  addition  to  the 
regular  assemblies,  recognized  in  the  constitution  of 
the  church,  there  is  still  another,  existing  merely  by 
virtue  of  a  resolution  of  the  Synod,  viz.  the  Executive 
Committee,  to  which  all  sorts  of  matters  are  referred 
and  which  transacts  the  business  of  the  church  during 
the  interim  between  meetings  of  the  Synod.  The  com- 
plaint is  frequently  heard  that  this  committee  is  as- 
suming too  much  power,  and  developing  into  some- 
thing like  a  board  of  bishops.  The  church  at  large, 
however,  seems  to  feel  the  need  of  some  such  body, 
and  continues  the  same  persons  in  office  year  after 
year. 


74         MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

One  more  peculiarity  of  the  church  organization 
must  be  mentioned.  After  defining  a  local  church  as  a 
body  of  believers  organized  according  to  the  rules  ot 
the  church  at  large,  the  constitution  distinguishes  two 
kinds  of  churches,  viz.,  mission  churches  and  churches 
properly  and  fully  so  called.  Mission  churches  are 
loosely  organized  groups  of  Christians,  having  neither 
elders  nor  full  rights  of  representation  in  Classis.  The 
standard  is  self-support.  A  body  too  weak  to  pay  the 
salary  of  a  pastor  and  other  ordinary  expenses  can 
not  be  a  fully  organized  church  in  fellowship  with 
the  Church  of  Christ  in  Japan. 

It  will  appear  from  what  has  been  said  that  the  po- 
sition of  the  Church  of  Christ  on  the  matter  of  church 
government  is,  in  general,  very  satisfactory.  The  work 
of  the  committee  to  whom  the  task  of  preparing  a  con- 
stitution was  entrusted  occupied  a  whole  year,  so 
carefully  was  it  done.  The  proposed  constitution  was 
published  in  Japanese  and  in  English  six  months  be- 
fore final  action  was  taken.  Finally,  in  the  resultant 
document  the  Japanese  church  availed  herself  of  the 
principles  of  ecclesiastical  procedure  established  by  the 
Presbyterian  and  Reformed  churches  with  which  she 
is  in  line  of  historical  development.  Amendments 
have  been  made  later  as  it  was  considered  that  the  ex- 
perience and  development  of  the  church  indicated  their 
wisdom.  All  this  is  a  sound  and  admirable  procedure. 
No  small  credit  is  due,  among  others,  to  Dr.  William 
Imbrie,  one  of  the  Presbyterian  missionaries,  who  was 
especially  responsible  for  drafting  the  document,  a 
task  for  which  he  was  peculiarly  well  adapted,  both  by 
nature  and  by  training. 


THE  FIRST  GREAT  STEP  75 

Confessional  Position  of  the  Church. 

It  is  deeply  to  be  regretted  that  the  procedure  of  the 
church  in  the  still  more  vital  matter  of  the  doctrinal 
standards  was  in  striking  contrast  to  the  sound  meth- 
ods employed  in  preparing  the  constitution.  The  mat- 
ter was  originally  entrusted  to  the  same  committee, 
but  in  its  report  the  committee  said  that  while  recog- 
nizing the  need  of  a  new  confession,  it  shrank  from 
the  work  of  preparing  one,  and  unanimously  offered 
the  EngHsh  Articles,  i.  e.,  the  confession  of  faith 
which  had  just  then  been  adopted  by  the  English  Pres- 
byterian Church,  for  the  acceptance  of  the  Synod. 
Some  of  the  members  of  the  Synod,  however,  pro- 
posed that  the  Apostles'  Creed,  and  that  alone,  should 
be  adopted.  When,  in  opposition  to  this,  the  obvious 
insufficiency  of  that  confession  was  pointed  out,  it  was 
suggested  that  a  supplementary  statement  could  be  in- 
serted as  an  introduction  to  the  Apostles'  Creed.  Dur- 
ing the  recess  the  following  confession  was  prepared 
by  Dr.  Imbrie,  and  on  presentation  to  the  Synod  it  was 
adopted  unanimously.  It  should  be  remarked  in  pass- 
ing that  the  sacraments,  not  mentioned  in  the  Confes- 
sion, appear  in  the  Constitution  and  Canons. 

Confession  of  Faith. 

The  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  whom  we  worship  as  God,  the  only 
begotten  Son  of  God,  for  us  men  was  made  man  and  suffered. 
He  offered  up  a  perfect  sacrifice  for  sin,  and  all  who  are  made 
one  with  Him  by  faith  are  pardoned  and  accounted  righteous ; 
and  faith  in  Him  working  by  love  purifieth  the  heart. 


^t         MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

The  Holy  Ghost,  who  with  the  Father  and  the  Son  is  wor- 
shipped and  glorified,  reveals  Christ  to  the  soul;  and  without 
His  grace  man,  being  dead  in  sins,  cannot  enter  the  kingdom 
of  God.  By  Him  the  prophets  and  apostles  and  holy  men  of 
old  were  inspired;  and  He,  speaking  in  the  Scriptures  of  the 
Old  and  New  Testaments  is  the  supreme  and  infallible  judge 
of  all  things  pertaining  to  faith  and  living. 

From  these  Holp  scriptures  the  ancient  church  of  Christ 
drew  its  confession,  and  we,  holding  the  faith  once  delivered 
to  the  saints,  join  in  that  confession  with  praise  and  thanks- 
giving :— 

(Here  follows  the  Apostles'  Creed.) 

I  have  said  that  this  action  presents  the  greatest  con- 
trast to  the  action  in  regard  to  the  constitution.  That 
document  was  the  result  of  a  year  of  labor ;  this  con- 
fession was  written  during  a  recess  between  two  ses- 
sions of  the  Synod :  the  constitution  was  printed  in 
both  English  and  Japanese  and  submitted  for  inspec- 
tion and  criticism  six  months  before  a  vote  was  tak- 
en: this  confession  was  at  once  adopted  on  presenta- 
tion to  the  Synod,  before  the  church  and  the  mission- 
ary body  at  large  had  any  opportunity  so  much  as  to 
read  it.  Finally,  in  the  document  itself  the  Japanese 
Church  cut  herself  ofif  from  the  historical  development 
from  which  she  sprang,  for  of  distinctively  Calvinistic 
ideas  there  is  not  the  slightest  trace. 

The  action  of  the  Synod  has  nevertheless  received 
much  praise  in  many  influential  quarters.  The  grounds 
upon  which  it  is  approved  are  generally  those  set  forth 
by  Dr.  Imbrie  in  the  Fourteenth  Report  of  the  Coun- 
cil. Briefly  stated,  they  are  that  the  church  must  have 
a  creed  suited  to  its  own  needs,  which  were  not  those 


THE  FIRST  GREAT  STEP  fj 

of  the  sixteenth  century;  that  other  ancient  churches, 
those  of  the  Nicene  and  Reformation  periods  especial- 
ly, adopted  creeds  to  suit  the  times;  that  the  Presby- 
terian Church  in  America  was  revising  its  confession 
— all  good  examples  for  the  Japanese  church  to  fol- 
low ;  and  that  the  need  called  for  a  simple,  irenic  con- 
fession, one  binding  equally  upon  pastor  and  people,  a 
statement  that  should  set  forth  the  great  truths  of 
historical  Christianity,  but  should  not  be  a  symbol  of 
division  among  those  who  love  and  worship  one  Lord 
Jesus  Christ. 

To  my  mind,  these  grounds  will  not  bear  careful  ex- 
amination. The  first,  that  "the  needs  of  the  church 
should  be  the  determining  element  in  the  adoption  of  a 
confession  for  the  church  in  Japan"  is  best  met  with  a 
flat  denial.  The  determining  element  in  a  confession 
is  the  body  of  truth  to  be  confessed.  The  state  of  the 
church  and  the  prevalent  errors  of  the  day  do  indeed 
have  their  influence  on  the  form  of  the  creed,  but  as 
to  the  substance  to  be  admitted,  a  creed  is  a  solemn 
act  of  self-expression  by  the  church  in  the  domain  of 
faith.  She  seeks  first  of  all  a  complete  and  accurate 
expression  of  what  she  believes. 

Further,  the  appeal  to  the  example  of  the  ancient 
church  fails  to  take  note  of  the  fact  that  neither  the 
Nicene  fathers  nor  the  Reformers  began  by  throwing 
overboard  what  they  already  possessed.  The  Nicene 
fathers  retained  the  Apostles'  Creed,  and  added  there- 
to the  truths  of  which  the  church  had  since  attained  a 
clearer  apprehension.  The  Reformers  did  the  same; 
keeping  the  old  creeds,  they  built  upon  that  founda- 


78         MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

tion.  If  they  rejected  anything,  they  did  it  because 
after  careful  examination  they  were  convinced  that  it 
was  not  in  accordance  with  the  Scriptures.  No  such 
conviction  influenced  the  Church  in  Japan. 

Again,  that  there  should  be  no  severer  test  of  orth- 
odoxy for  the  leaders  and  official  teachers  of  the 
church  than  for  the  humblest  member,  is  a  proposi- 
tion that  refutes  itself. 

Finally,  the  example  of  the  modern  churches  to 
which  reference  is  made  should  have  led  the  Japanese 
church  to  a  very  different  attitude.  The  Presbyterian 
Church  in  America  did  not  revise  its  confession  in  any 
such  radical  way  as  the  church  in  Japan. 

No  fault  can  be  found  with  the  church  for  desiring 
a  new  statement  of  her  faith.  Descended  from  the 
Presbyterian  churches  of  England  and  Scotland  on 
the  one  hand,  and  from  the  Reformed  churches  of 
Holland  and  Germany  on  the  other,  there  was  no  rea- 
son why  she  should  adopt  the  symbols  of  the  one 
rather  than  of  the  other.  To  adopt  them  all,  as  was  at 
first  done,  was  obviously  a  compromise,  and  inappro- 
priate after  the  Cumberland  Presbyterian  Church  had 
been  admitted  to  the  body.  If  the  Synod  had  adopted 
the  report  of  the  committee  which  recommended  the 
confession  of  the  English  Presbyterian  Church,  or  if 
she  had  soberly  addressed  herself  to  the  task  of  pre- 
paring a  new  confession — a  task  for  which  her  own 
committee  felt  that  she  had  not  yet  the  competence, 
nothing  could  be  said. 

There  were  not  lacking  missionaries  who  strongly 
disapproved  of  the  action  taken.  Dr.  Verbeck  was  one 


THE  FIRST  GREAT  STEP  79 

of  these.  They  were  apparently,  however,  either  in- 
disposed to  raise  their  voices  in  such  a  conflict  or  de- 
void of  influence.  Possibly,  in  view  of  all  the  cir- 
cumstances they  thought  it  would  do  more  harm  than 
good.  It  cannot  be  denied,  however,  that  many  of  the 
missionaries  erred  in  undervaluing  the  supreme  im- 
portance of  doctrine.  This  creed  revision  affair,  as 
well  as  other  developments  in  the  history  of  the 
church  finds  its  explanation  partly  in  New  School 
ideas  among  the  missionaries. 

The  creed  itself,  however,  is  better  than  its  extreme 
brevity  and  the  circumstances  of  its  adoption  would 
lead  men  to  expect.  It  does  present  the  elementary 
truths  of  oui  religion  in  easily  comprehended,  non- 
scientific  language.  Its  expressions  are  largely  taken 
from  the  older  confessions.  It  is,  moreover,  entitled 
to  the  credit  of  containing  nothing  but  what  is  heartily 
believed  by  the  church.  This  is  a  negative  excellence, 
the  result  partly  of  its  poverty,  but  it  is  entitled  to  rec- 
ognition. The  faith  of  the  ministry  and  of  intelligent 
laymen  is  probably  greater,  not  smaller,  than  the  pro- 
fession. 

The  Condition  and  Problems  of  the  Church. 

We  have  no  time  to  do  more  than  to  glance  at  the 
last  division  of  our  subject,  the  condition  and  prob- 
lems of  the  church  in  Japan.  To  do  it  justice  would 
require  a  volume. 

The  ordinary  church  work  is  conducted  very  much 
as  it  is  among  us.    I  should  be  puzzled  to  mention  any 


8o         MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

particularly  Japanese  feature  in  it.  Church  attend- 
ance Js^  small,  in  proportion  to  the  membership,  owing 
partly  to  the  scattered  condition  of  the  believers,  part- 
ly to  the  lack  of  church  going  habits  and  traditions  in 
the  individual  and  in  the  community.  The  average  at- 
tendance at  church  services  in  the  Church  of  Christ  in 
Japan  is  about  one-third,  and  the  number  actually 
communing  is  about  one-half  of  the  total  membership. 
Prayer-meetings,  however,  are  well  attended.  In  this 
respect  the  Japanese  Christians  excel  the  members  of 
our  churches. 

Sabbath  observance  is  a  perplexing  question.  The 
proprietary  and  duty  of  it  are  generally  admitted,  and 
the  ministers  do  not  fail  to  urge  it,  but  the  organiza- 
tion of  society  and  the  habits  of  the  people  are,  of 
course,  all  against  it.  It  is  not  made  a  matter  of  dis- 
cipline or  a  test  of  fellowship.  Many  of  the  members, 
those  who  are  teachers,  civil  and  military  officers, 
clerks  in  banks  and  other  similar  establishments,  can 
and  do  observe  the  day,  and  there  are  even  some  cases 
of  farmers  and  merchants  doing  so,  but  such  cases  are 
rare. 

Private  prayer  and  Bible  reading  are  well  observed. 
As  to  family  prayer,  the  custom  of  asking  a  blessing 
at  meals  is  well  established,  but  I  have  no  reason  to 
think  that  the  more  formal  erection  of  a  family  altar 
is  as  yet  general. 

The  religious  instruction  of  the  children  is  left  al- 
most entirely  to  the  Sunday  school,  after  the  Ameri- 
can fashion,  and  with  about  the  same  results.     Cate- 


THE  FIRST  GREAT  STEP  8i 

chisms  are  used  to  some  extent,  but  not  for  children; 
for  adults  preparing  for  baptism. 

Church  discipline  is,  in  the  main,  well  enforced, 
especially  for  offenses  against  chastity.  This  means 
much  in  a  country  where  divorce,  concubinage,  and 
similar  evils  are  so  common  and  so  open. 

The  preaching  of  the  Japanese  ministers  sometimes 
leaves  something  to  be  desired  in  simplicity  of  lan- 
guage, directness  of  spirtual  aim  and  completeness  and 
symmetry  of  doctrinal  content.  Positive  heresy  there 
is,  I  think,  very  little  among  the  ministers  of  our 
church.  Generally  the  preaching  is  fair,  and  often  it 
is  surpassingly  good.  The  Japanese  pulpit  has  already 
produced  some  notable  pulpit  orators. 

Self-support  has  made  remarkable  progress  during 
the  last  decade.  In  fact,  it  may  be  called  one  of  the 
distinguishing  marks  of  the  period.  Although,  as 
stated  already,  the  membership  increase  in  ten  years 
was  only  45  per  cent,  the  contributions  during  the 
same  time  rose  from  94,275  Yen  to  259,498,  an  in- 
crease of  175  per  cent.  The  amendments  to  the  con- 
stitution of  the  church  were  intended  to  eliminate 
from  any  share  in  the  control  of  the  denominational 
interests  all  congregations  not  bona  fide  self-support- 
ing. From  the  standpoint  of  spiritual  conceptions  of 
church  government  it  is  impossible  to  justify  such 
rules,  but  they  may  have  some  practical  advantage. 

It  is  a  matter  for  sincere  congratulation  that  the 
church  has  made  such  progress  that  an  excellent  week- 
ly religious  paper  can  be  maintained.  It  receives  no 
subsidy  of  any  kind  from  the  missions.  The  editor  in 
6 


82         MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

chief*  is  a  man  of  remarkable  ability  and  is  regarded 
among  the  Japanese  as  a  champion  of  orthodoxy,  al- 
though extreme  in  many  of  his  views  and  methods, 
and  rather  unfriendly  towards  missionaries.  He  is  at 
the  same  time  pastor  of  a  church  in  the  capital,  and 
both  by  his  pulpit  and  by  his  editorial  work  is  entitled 
to  the  name  of  leader  of  the  church. 

The  spiritual  and  moral  life  of  our  churches  in  Ja- 
pan is,  on  the  whole,  gratifying  and  encouraging.  It 
is  not  such  as  to  justify  the  expectations  of  that  very 
considerable,  and  very  unreasonable  class  who  think 
that  a  Christian  community  just  brought  out  of  irreli- 
gion  or  heathenism  should  surpass  in  grace  and  zeal 
those  who  have  had  the  blessings  of  the  gospel  for 
generations,  but  no  one  who  is  willing  to  make  the 
proper  allowances  need  be  disappointed  in  our  Japa- 
nese Christians.  Their  daily  morality  is  far  above 
that  of  their  unconverted  neighbors.  Their  religious 
knowledge  is  limited  and  their  doctrinal  conceptions 
are  often  painfully  elementary,  but  I  believe  that  they 
have  a  good  degree  of  purity  so  far  as  they  go.  This 
is  true  of  the  average,  while  among  those  who  are 
above  the  average  there  are  men  and  women  for 
whose  Christian  character,  clearness  of  comprehension 
of  the  way  of  salvation,  and  unselfish  zeal  one  cannot 
help  having  the  greatest  respect.  Touching  stories 
could  be  told  of  their  simple  faith  and  mutual  love. 
Monuments  they  are  of  divine  grace,  blameless  and 
harmless,  the  sons  of  God,  holding  forth  the  word  of 


*The  Rev'd  M.  Uemura. 


THE  FIRST  GREAT  STEP  83 

life,  in  the  midst  of  a  crooked  and  perverse  generation, 
among  whom  they  shine  as  lights  in  the  world. 

With  all  that  may  be  justly  said  in  criticism  of  the 
church,  especially  of  its  confessional  position,  it  re- 
mains true  that  many,  both  laymen  and  ministers,  have 
merited  the  emphatic  expression  of  confidence  con- 
tained in  one  of  the  writings  of  Dr.  Robert  E.  Speer, 
who  says : 

"How  much  credit  the  church  and  its  leaders  deserve  can 
only  be  realized  by  those  who  have  themselves  passed  through 
periods  of  intense  intellectual  and  spiritual  uncertainty,  and 
yet  have  at  the  same  time  had  to  fight  the  battle  of  faith  and 
certitude  against  agnosticism  and  naturalism.  This  is  what 
the  men  of  the  Church  of  Christ  have  had  to  do.  Less  than  a 
generation  out  of  the  old  life  of  Japan,  with  no  inherited 
equipment  of  moral  and  intellectual  tendency  drawing  them 
to  the  truth,  beaten  as  by  the  billows  of  a  great  storm,  by 
surge  after  surge  of  error  and  fancy  pouring  in  on  them  from 
Christian  lands,  a  little  handful,  misunderstood  and  maligned, 
perplexed  by  the  conflict  of  influences  they  could  not  stop  to 
scrutinize  and  slay  at  cool  leisure,  dazzled  and  bewildered  by 
the  lights  that  flooded  them,  swung  along  constantly  by  the 
mad  rush  of  the  nation,  they  have  kept  their  faces  boldly 
towards  Christ  and  his  cross,  and  they  have  fought  the  battles 
of  evangelical  religion  in  a  way  that  takes  away  from  my 
heart  any  feelings  but  those  of  admiration  and  regard." 


CHAPTER  IV. 

The  Missions  and  the  Native  Church. 

Of  the  many  problems  in  connection  with  the  mis- 
sionary work,  the  most  numerous  and  the  most  serious 
arise  after  the  church  on  foreign  soil  has  come  into 
existence.  To  a  study  of  these  problems  we  propose 
to  devote  this  lecture  and  the  next.  Those  we  shall 
consider  at  this  time  center  about  the  missionaries, 
their  organization  among  themselves,  and  the  relations 
that  ought  to  exist  between  them  and  the  church. 

The  Mission  Organization. 

Let  me  first  call  your  attention  to  the  organization 
in  which  the  missionaries,  by  direction  of  the  Boards, 
are  united.  This  is  called  the  Mission.  Usually  all 
the  missionaries  in  one  field  constitute  one  mission,  but 
in  Japan,  by  reason  of  the  great  distance  between  the 
two  sections  in  which  we  operate,  there  are  two  mis- 
sions, called  respectively  the  North  Japan  and  South 
Japan  Missions.  They  are  composed  of  all  the  mis- 
sionaries of  our  church  in  these  sections.  These  or- 
ganizations are  not  large,  but  their  business  is  very 
carefully  conducted  and  their  powers  are  very  exten- 
sive. A  missionary  is  largely  under  the  control  of  his 
associates.  They  fix  his  residence,  assign  to  him  his 
work,  pass  upon  his  plans,  direct  him  in  the  use  of  his 
time,  examine  him  in  his  progress  in  the  language, 


MISSIONS  AND  NATIVE  CHURCH       85 

send  him  home  when  he  is  so  ill  as  to  require  it,  de- 
termine the  times  when  he  shall  return  to  the  United 
States  on  furlough,  and  in  other  ways  exercise  au- 
thority over  him  such  as  is  not  found  in  any  ecclesias- 
tical assembly  with  which  the  American  minister  is 
acquainted. 

If  the  mission  has  institutions,  such  as  schools  or 
hospitals,  the  mission  is  a  Board  of  Directors  with  full 
charge  of  the  same,  and  in  that  capacity  determines 
the  lines  upon  which  they  are  to  be  conducted,  en- 
gages and  discharges  at  discretion  the  teachers  and 
other  employees,  fixes  their  salaries,  etc.  It  is  the 
same  in  the  evangelistic  work.  Who  are  to  be  em- 
ployed as  evangelists,  where  they  are  to  be  located, 
what  compensation  they  are  to  receive,  and  similar 
questions,  are  all,  directly  or  indirectly,  under  the  au- 
thority of  the  mission.  It  is  a  body  without  any  ec- 
clesiastical standing,  and  carefully  refrains  from  as- 
suming any  of  the  authority  that  belongs  to  a  consis- 
tory, a  classis,  or  a  Synod,  but  its  practical  power  is 
very  great. 

Its  proceedings  are  necessarily  private.  By  the  rules 
of  the  Board  no  native  of  the  country  where  the  mis- 
sion is  located  can  be  a  member  of  it.  Neither  are  its 
sessions  open  to  any  outsider.  Its  acts  are  never  pub- 
lished, and  it  is  a  commonly  understood  and  observed 
point  of  etiquette  among  missionaries  that  its  affairs 
are  not  discussed  with  outsiders.  No  appeal  lies 
against  its  acts  by  any  person  or  body  outside  of  its 
own  membership.  If  one  of  its  own  members  thinks 
it  wise  and  right  to  appeal  to  the  Board  he  can  do  so, 


86         MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

but  he  must  have  a  strong  and  important  case,  indeed, 
to  stand  any  chance  of  success.  In  nearly  twenty  years 
of  missionary  experience  I  have  known  only  two 
cases  of  appeal  and  but  one  of  these  was  sustained. 

You  will  readily  understand  that  the  presence  of 
live  or  six  organizations  of  this  nature  alongside  of  a 
youthful  church,  in  constant  touch  with  it  in  one  way 
and  another,  with  considerable  money  to  spend,  gives 
rise  to  some  important  problems.  The  very  first  is 
whether  on  the  basis  of  the  Reformed  and  Presbyte- 
rian principles  of  church  government,  to  which  we 
stand  committed,  such  an  organization  has  any  right 
to  exist.  Has  the  Presbyterian  church  polity,  as  laid 
down  at  Dortrecht  and  historically  developed  in  the 
churches  of  Holland,  Scotland  and  England,  any  place 
for  it?  It  must  be  confessed  that  it  has  not.  But 
then,  for  the  matter  of  that,  neither  has  that  form  of 
church  polity  any  place  for  the  missionary  himself! 
To  be  sure,  at  present  one  may,  in  our  church,  be  or- 
dained as  a  missionary,  but  that  is  a  comparatively 
recent  provision.  Originally  no  one  could  be  ordained 
who  did  not  have  a  call  from  a  church.  I  understand 
that  the  churches  in  the  Netherlands  still  feel  this  em- 
barrassment, and  are  trying  to  overcome  it  by  giving 
each  missionary  a  call  from  some  local  church  and 
then  ordaining  him  on  the  strength  of  such  a  call. 
This  is,  at  best,  an  awkward  method  of  maintaining 
a  theoretical  consistency.  It  is  better,  in  my  judg- 
ment, frankly  to  admit  that  the  missionary,  and, 
a  fortiori,  the  mission,  have  no  place  in  the  order  un- 
der which  we  regulate  our  church  life. 


MISSIONS  AND  NATIVE  CHURCH       87 

Embarrassment  on  this  score,  however,  is  much  re- 
lieved, if  it  does  not  disappear  altogether,  when  we 
remember  that  the  Reformed  church  order  was  in- 
stituted for  the  benefit  of  the  church  in  a  Christian 
country.  From  beginning  to  end  it  contemplates  the 
church  as  established  and  in  undisputed  possession  of 
the  field,  which,  indeed,  was  the  case  in  Holland  in 
the  seventeenth  century.  The  church  order,  therefore, 
is  that  of  "ecclesia  constituta,"  and  has  nothing  to  do 
with  conditions  existing  in  ''ecclesia  constituenda." 
Everything  relating  to  the  activity  "ad  intra"  is  ac- 
cordingly provided  for,  but  the  activity  "ad  extra"  is 
not  touched  upon.  The  situation  corresponds  to  the 
distinction  between  civil  and  martial  law.  The  au- 
thority of  the  officers  who  administer  martial  law  is 
not  defined  in  the  regular  civil  codes,  because  such 
codes  contemplate  the  country  under  loyal  and  peace- 
ful conditions.  The  ordinary  laws  do  make  provis- 
ion for  a  military  force,  and  in  general  recognize  the 
existence  of  such  a  thing  as  military  law,  but  they  do 
not  specify  in  detail  the  manner  in  which  it  is  to  be 
exercised.  They  need  not,  for  the  authority  of  mar- 
tial law  is  temporary,  and  exists  either  in  a  conquered 
or  in  a  disturbed  and  rebellious  country.  As  soon  as  it 
has  accomplished  its  purpose,  it  gives  way  to  the  civil 
law,  which  is  the  permanent  authority. 

The  case  of  the  missionary  in  relation  to  the  Re- 
formed church  order  is  similar.  He  is  like  the  mili- 
tary officer  who  administers  the  martial  law.  He  op- 
erates where  the  regular  establishment  is  not  yet  set 
up.     He  may,  therefore,  rightly  exercise  remarkable 


88         MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

powers,  distinctly  beyond  those  which  any  minister  in 
the  home  land  may  lay  claim  to,  but  his  work  is  tem- 
porary. The  missionary  is  not  one  of  the  officers  es- 
sential to  the  permanent  life  of  the  church.  In  an 
ideal  condition  the  other  officers  remain,  he  disap- 
pears. He  is  somewhat  analogous,  in  the  extraor- 
dinary powers  he  wields  and  in  the  temporary  charac- 
ter of  his  office,  to  the  apostles,  who  founded  the 
church  and  left  no  successors. 

The  system  established  by  the  fathers  of  Dort  and 
Westminster  is,  therefore,  open  to  the  objection  of  be- 
ing too  ideal,  and  of  failing  to  recognize  the  impor- 
tance of  the  activity  "ad  extra,"  but  the  office  of  the 
missionary  is  not  in  conffict  with  their  system — it  is 
only  overlooked.  Considering  their  system  as  intended 
to  regulate  conditions  within  the  church,  no  embar- 
rassment need  be  felt  on  account  of  the  omission  of 
the  missionary,  inasmuch  as  he,  in  his  official  capacity, 
has  no  place  inside  of,  but  always  remains  outside  of 
her  established  life. 

In  the  light  of  these  principles,  I  wish  briefly  to 
discuss  the  question  whether  the  ordained  missionary 
should  be  a  member  of  a  classis  in  the  native  church, 
and  then  a  little  more  fully  to  set  forth  the  relations 
between  the  mission  organizations  of  the  Reformed 
and  Presbyterian  churches  and  the  Church  of  Christ 
in  Japan. 

The  Missionaries  and  the  Native  Presbyteries. 

If  the  views  that  have  been  set  forth  have  obtained 
your  assent,  it  should  not  be  difficult  to  see  that  the 


MISSIONS  AND  NATIVE  CHURCH       89 

missionary,  in  his  official  capacity,  is  out  of  place  in 
any  assembly  where  the  life  of  "ecclesia  constituta" 
finds  expression.  This  is  equally  true  of  the  church 
in  America  and  of  that  in  the  foreign  field,  consid- 
ered as  already  well  established.  This  does  not  hin- 
der his  having  such  a  place  during  the  immaturity  of 
the  church,  for  then  the  conditions  of  "ecclesia  consti- 
tuta'' do  not  yet  obtain.  Our  theoretical  conclusion, 
therefore,  is  that  a  missionary  ought  not  to  sit  in  any 
church  court,  either  at  home  or  abroad,  as  a  mem- 
ber with  full  powers. 

He  has,  however,  a  relation  of  peculiar  responsi- 
bility to  the  church  that  has  sent  him  out,  and,  there- 
fore, it  is  proper  that  he  should  be  under  its  ecclesi- 
astical jurisdiction,  which  relation  is  best  expressed  by 
his  being  and  remaining  a  member  of  some  classis  in 
the  home  church.  The  question  whether  he  should 
not  become  a  bona  fide  member  of  one  of  the  native 
presbyteries  has  been  much  discussed,  and  some  mis- 
sionaries, especially  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  have 
become  members  of  presbyteries  in  Japan,  but  the 
trend  of  opinion  is  away  from  that  practice  at  pres- 
ent, and  the  authorities  of  the  Presbyterian  Church, 
who  at  one  time  favored  it,  are  now  taking  the  oppo- 
site view.  It  is,  however,  not  only  a  theoretical,  but 
also  a  practical  matter,  and  in  spite  of  the  views  here 
set  forth,  if  I  were  convinced  that  important  advan- 
tages would  result  from  my  joining  a  Japanese  pres- 
bytery as  full  member,  I  should  not  hesitate  to  ask  for 
a  transfer.  At  present  I  am  not  so  convinced.  My 
theory  and  practice,  therefore,  on  this  point  coincide. 


90         MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

The  history  of  the  relations  of  the  ordained  mis- 
sionaries to  the  Japanese  presbyteries  has  followed 
pretty  well  the  lines  here  laid  down.  At  first  they 
were  full  members  of  those  bodies,  or  rather,  were 
endowed  with  the  full  powers  of  members  without 
surrendering  their  membership  in  the  home  churches, 
and  without  putting  themselves  under  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  native  church.  They  enjoyed  this  exceptional 
position  ex-officio,  as  missionaries.  In  1890  this  was 
changed,  and  they  had  no  longer  any  ex-officio  rights, 
but  could  be,  and  invariably  were,  elected  Advisory 
Members,  able  to  speak  and  to  serve  on  committees, 
but  not  to  vote.  This  lasted  for  sixteen  years,  when 
advisory  membership  was  again  made  ex-officio,  but 
on  certain  conditions,  which  were  accepted  by  the  mis- 
sions of  the  Presbyterian  and  German  Reformed 
churches,  but  were  rejected  by  us  and  the  Southern 
Presbyterians.  What  these  conditions  were  and  what 
is  the  significance  of  the  whole  movement  must  now 
be  considered. 

Previously  to  the  year  1886,  there  were  no  formal 
relations  before  the  Church  of  Christ  in  Japan  and 
the  several  Presbyterian  and  Reformed  Missions. 
These  missions  were,  however,  united  among  them- 
selves in  a  Council  called  at  first  "The  Council  of 
United  Missions,"  which  name  was  later  changed  to 
"The  Council  of  Missions  Co-Operating  with  the 
Church  of  Christ  in  Japan."  In  1886  a  sort  of  part- 
nership was  formed  between  this  Council  and  the 
Church,  according  to  which  the  missions  were  to  put 
in  three  dollars  for  every  dollar  that  was  contributed 


MISSIONS  AND  NATIVE  CHURCH       91 

by  the  Japanese,  and  the  resultant  fund  was  to  be  used 
for  evangeHstic  work,  being  administered  in  each 
Presbytery  by  a  committee  composed  of  Japanese  and 
missionaries  in  equal  numbers.  The  underlying  prin- 
ciple of  this  arrangement  is  the  view  of  the  missionary 
purpose  to  which  I  referred  in  the  first  lecture  as  the 
Church  establishment  theory,  namely  that  upon  the 
native  church  rests  the  responsibility  of  evangelizing 
the  country,  and  that  in  this  enterprise  the  American 
cEtJrches,  if  they  are  to  work  at  all,  must  do  so 
through  the  native  church  organization.  Accordingly, 
although  the  Japanese  contributed  but  one-fourth  of 
the  expenses,  they  had  one-half  of  the  control.  Ac- 
cordingly, also,  all  the  members,  foreigners,  as  well  as 
Japanese,  were  the  appointers  of  the  Japanese  assem- 
blies, and  responsible  to  them.  Personally  they  were 
members  of  the  missions,  officially,  in  directing  the 
evangelistic  work,  they  were  responsible,  not  to  their 
respective  missions,  but  to  the  Church.  Receipts  for 
the  money  contributed  by  the  missions  were  written  to 
the  effect  that  such  a  mission  had  appropriated  so  and 
so  much  to  the  evangelistic  work  of  the  Church  of 
Christ  in  Japan. 

At  the  outset,  it  was  expected  that,  with  the  growth 
of  the  Church,  which  was  then  doubling  in  member- 
ship every  three  years,  the  contributions  would  also 
rapidly  increase,  so  that  soon  the  money  to  be  appro- 
priated by  the  missions  would  absorb  the  entire  sum 
at  their  disposal.  In  that  case  all  such  work  would  \ 
automatically  pass  into  the  hands  of  the  joint  com- 
mittees, and  the  missions,  as  such,  would  cease  to  do 


92         MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

any  evangelistic  work.  It  was,  therefore,  in  one  sense, 
a  preparation  for  the  time,  expected  soon  to  come, 
when  missionary  work  in  Japan  would  cease,  and  the 
missionaries  be  withdrawn,  except  for  financial  as- 
sistance to  be  extended  by  the  church  in  America  to 
that  in  Japan.  You  will  remember  the  statement  quoted 
in  the  first  lecture  from  the  Twelfth  Annual  Report 
of  the  Council  of  Missions:  "We  may  anticipate  the 
close  of  this  foreign  missionary  enterprise  by  the  close 
of  the  nineteenth  century/'  With  such  expectations  it 
was  surely  not  too  early,  in  1886,  to  begin  preparations 
for  a  suitable  organization  to  carry  on  the  work  after 
the  withdrawal  of  the  missions. 

These  expectations  were  not,  however,  realized. 
When  the  reaction  set  in,  about  the  year  1890,  so  far 
from  the  church  being  able  to  make  constant  gains  in 
contributions,  it  did  not  even  live  up  to  its  contract  to 
pay  one-fourth  of  the  expense  of  the  work  in  hand, 
and  a  debt  of  290  yen  thus  incurred  was  remitted  by 
the  Council  in  1895.  I"  the  meantime  the  increasing 
liberality  of  the  American  churches  placed  larger  ap- 
propriations in  the  hands  of  the  missions,  so  that  the 
portion  of  the  evangelistic  work  administered  by  then 
grew  larger  instead  of  smaller,  and  the  probability  ol 
its  being  taken  over  by  the  joint  committee  becamt 
more  and  more  remote.  No  one  could  be  enthusiastic 
over  such  a  scheme,  and  the  church  made  certain  pro 
posals  for  amendment,  which  were  not  accepted  by  tht 
missions.  During  the  discussion,  it  was  suggested  by 
the  Council  that  it  would  be  more  satisfactory  in 
every  way  if  the  church  had  its  own  independent 
board  of  missions.    This  suggestion  was  acted  upon, 


MISSIONS  AND  NATIVE  CHURCH       93 

and  in  1894  the  Synod  organized  its  own  Board,  with 
both  financial  responsibiUty  and  control  entirely  in  the 
hands  of  the  Church.  This  was  a  great  step  forward, 
and  this  Board  has  done  splendid  work.  It  has 
brought  a  number  of  churches  to  self-support.  It 
raises  now  the  sum  of  about  five  thousand  dollars  a 
year,  and  during  1909  maintained  or  assisted  work  in 
twelve  places,  of  which  four  were  in  Japan,  one  in 
Formosa,  three  in  Korea  and  four  in  Manchuria. 

The  partnership  between  the  Church  and  the  mis- 
sions came  to  an  end  with  the  organization  of  this 
Board.  Let  us  now  note  that  in  the  year  1890,  while 
this  partnership  was  still  well  established,  the  consti- 
tution had  been  revised,  and  the  missionaries  of  the 
missions  co-operating  with  the  Church  of  Christ  in 
Japan  had  been  made  eligible  to  election  as  Advisory 
Members  of  Presbytery  and  Synod.  The  word  used 
was  ^'Co-operating,"  but  the  nature  of  the  co-opera- 
tion was  not  defined.  No  one  felt  any  need  of  defining 
it,  as  every  one  knew  perfectly  well  which  missions 
were  intended. 

After  the  partnership  between  the  missions  and  the 
Church  had  ceased,  however,  the  question  was  raised 
what  relations  existed  or  ought  to  exist  between  the 
Church  and  the  missions.  The  Synod,  in  1895,  di- 
rected the  presbyteries  to  appoint  committees  to  in- 
quire into  these  relations,  and  the  reports  of  these 
committees  were  considered  in  1897.  The  result  was 
the  declaration  that  not  a  single  case  of  proper  co- 
operation could  be  found,  and  the  following  definition 
was  adopted : 


94         MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

"A  co-operating  mission  is  one  that  plans  and  executes  all 
its  evangelistic  operations  through  a  committee,  composed  of 
equal  numbers  of  the  representatives  of  a  mission,  working 
within  the  bounds  of  a  presbytery  of  the  Church  of  Christ 
of  Japan,  and  of  the  members  of  the  said  presbytery." 

The  new  points  to  be  noted  in  this  definition  are 
that  this  speaks  of  ''air  the  evangelistic  w^ork,  and 
that  the  church  proposes  to  assume  none  of  the  finan- 
cial burden.  By  this  definition  the  church  claimed  that 
the  missions,  if  they  wished  to  "co-operate"  with  the 
Church  of  Christ  in  Japan,  ought  to  put  her  in  the 
position  she  would  have  attained  through  the  old  plan, 
if  it  had  worked  well.  Had  she  developed  in  size 
and  consecration  as  that  plan  contemplated,  she  would 
have  obtained  one-half  the  control  of  the  evangelistic 
work  as  soon  as  she  had  the  ability  and  willingness 
to  shoulder  one-fourth  of  the  expense.  In  this  defini- 
tion she  came  forward  with  a  proposal  that  she  be 
granted  the  same  degree  of  authority  over  the  work  as 
she  would  in  that  case  have  had,  without  possessing 
any  such  degree  of  financial  and  spiritual  development. 

There  was  no  disposition  whatever  on  the  part  of 
the  missions  to  agree  to  this  proposal.  They  courte- 
ously responded,  giving  their  own  ideas  of  true  co- 
operation, as  follows: 

Co-operation  is,  in  the  opinion  of  the  Council,  best  carried 
on  where  the  Japanese  church  organization,  in  its  sessions, 
presbyteries  and  synod,  directs  all  ecclesiastical  matters,  avail- 
ing itself  of  the  counsels  of  the  missions  or  missionaries  as 
occasion  arises,  while  the  missions  direct  their  own  educa- 
tional, evangelistic  and  other  missionary  operations,  availing 


MISSIONS  AND  NATIVE  CHURCH       95 

themselves,  likewise,  of  whatever  counsel  or  assistance  they 
may  be  able  to  obtain  from  their  brethren  in  the  Japanese 
church. 

I, 
The  Ideal  of  the  Synod  was,  therefore:  A  formal 

partnership,  in  which  the  Church  should  have  equal 
control  without  any  financial  responsibility.  That  of 
the  Council  was:  Each  supreme  in  his  own  depart- 
ment, and  an  informal  alliance  whereby  each  should 
be  consulted  by  the  other.  Various  committees  were 
appointed  and  conferences  were  held  for  the  purpose 
of  reconciling  these  divergent  views,  but  the  negotia- 
tions ended  in  nothing  but  expressions  of  mutual  es- 
teem, and  the  matter  was  dropped  for  a  period  of 
nearly  ten  years,  during  which  the  work  grew  and 
prospered,  and  the  personal  relations  between  the  mis- 
sionaries and  the  Japanese  were,  with  the  inconsidera- 
ble exceptions  that  are  always  unavoidable,  of  the  most 
pleasant  and  fraternal  kind. 

These  years  were  years  of  development  along  vari- 
ous Hues.  The  war  with  Russia  intervened,  and  of 
necessity  left  the  nation  in  a  state  of  aroused  national 
self-assertion  and  elated  with  a  pardonable  national 
pride.  The  churches  had  recovered  from  the  effects  of 
the  reaction,  and  felt  themselves  constantly  gaining 
financial,  intellectual  and  spiritual  strength.  A  con- 
siderable number  of  them  had  become  self-support- 
ing, and  as  local  churches  had  no  longer  any  connec- 
tion, direct  or  indirect,  with  foreign  missions  or  mis- 
sionaries. Many  of  the  older  missionaries,  intimately 
acquainted  with  and  highly  esteemed  by  the  leaders 
of  the  Japanese  church,  retired,  or  died,  or  lost  the 


96         MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

controlling  influence  in  their  respective  organizations 
which  they  formerly  enjoyed.  The  result  was  a  nat- 
ural and  inevitable  loss  of  acquaintance  and  contact 
between  the  men  who  controlled  the  policy  of  the 
missions  and  those  who  guided  the  Japanese  church. 
Moreover,  there  was  not  only  a  change  of  personnel ; 
the  younger  men,  in  many  cases,  held  radically  differ- 
ent ideas  in  regard  to  the  missionary  work  from  those 
which  ruled  in  the  latter  eighties.  At  the  time  when 
the  original  partnership  between  the  missions  and  the 
church  failed,  it  was  regretted  by  the  leading  mission- 
aries as  postponing  the  time  when  the  work  of  the 
missions  could  be  turned  over  to  the  church,  which 
turning  over  was  nevertheless  looked  forward  to  as 
certain  to  come  some  day  when  the  church  was  bet- 
ter developed.  This  view  was  shared  by  the  native 
church,  which  had  been  thoroughly  indoctrinated  with 
this  idea  in  the  period  of  prosperity  and  had  clung  to 
it.  It  was  shared  also  in  another  very  influential  quar- 
ter, viz. :  among  the  officers  of  the  Boards  at  home, 
who  had  not  forgotten  the  roseate  prophecies  of  the 
latter  eighties,  and  were  still  waiting  for  the  original 
program  to  be  carried  out. 

Neither  the  waiting  church  nor  the  waiting  Boards 
fully  realized  that  in  the  meantime  a  great  change  had 
come  over  the  missions,  which  had  become,  to  large 
extent,  converts  to  the  view  expressed  by  Mr.  Robert 
E.  Speer,  to  the  effect  that  church  and  mission  are  rad- 
ically distinct  conceptions,  with  distinct  functions,  and 
that  these  must  not  be  confused.  From  this  it  follows 
that  the  work  of  the  mission  is  never  to  be  turned 


MISSIONS  AND  NATIVE  CHURCH       97 

over  to  the  church,  any  more  than  the  work  of  the 
church  is  to  be  turned  over  to  the  missions.  This 
was  nothing  less  than  a  revolution  in  the  fundamental 
conception  of  the  matter.  According  to  this  view,  not 
only  had  the  original  partnership  failed  to  accomplish 
its  purpose,  but  the  purpose  itself  was  bad  !  Such  men 
were  not  waiting  for  the  time  to  come  when  the  orig- 
inal purpose  could  be  carried  into  effect,  but  were 
ready  to  resist  to  the  bitter  end  all  attempts  in  that  di- 
rection. 

A  notable  change  of  view  of  the  opposite  kind  was 
found  in  Mr.  Speer  himself.  In  his  report  on  Japan, 
in  1898,  he  stated  and  defended  in  the  clearest  man- 
ner the  principles  advocated  in  these  lectures,  but 
seven  or  eight  years  later  was  found,  to  our  great  sur- 
prise, in  the  other  camp. 

A  cloud  as  big  as  a  man's  hand  appeared  in  the 
Synod  in  1904,  in  the  form  of  a  motion  that  all 
churches  not  wholly  self-supporting  in  two  years 
should  be  disbanded.  One  of  the  reasons  in  favor  of 
this  action,  urged  upon  the  floor  of  the  Synod,  was 
that  a  supported  congregation  was  necessarily  some- 
what under  the  control  of  the  supporting  mission  and 
that  so  long  as  there  were  such  congregations  in  the 
Church  of  Christ  in  Japan,  the  said  church  was  not 
completely  and  really  independent.  A  strong  party  in 
the  Synod  was  opposed  to  this  motion,  and  succeeded 
in  defeating  it  for  the  time  being.  It  was  sure,  how- 
ever, to  come  up  again,  and  in  order  to  deprive  this  ar- 
gument of  any  force,  the  party  opposed  to  the  motion, 
in  the  interval  between  the  Synod  of  1904  and  that 
7 


98         MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

of  1905,  began  unofficial  negotiations,  to  see  whether 
the  basis  of  co-operation  offered  by  the  Synod  in  1897 
might  not,  after  all,  be  adopted.  They  presented  the 
matter  to  the  Council  in  the  summer  of  1905,  but  that 
body,  after  full  discussion,  adopted  resolutions  prac- 
tically re-affirming  its  own  action  of  1897. 

The  Synod  then  took  the  unusual  step  of  preparing 
a  communication  to  the  churches,  a  sort  of  pastoral 
letter,  in  which  it  set  forth  a  history  of  the  discus- 
sion, and  of  sending  a  formal  communication  on  the 
subject  to  the  Boards  in  America.  These  Boards 
thereupon  did  the  unprecedented,  and,  to  our  minds, 
unpardonable  thing  of  replying  to  this  communica- 
tion directly,  without  any  consultation  with  the  mis- 
sions. The  replies  of  the  Presbyterian  Board  and  of 
our  own  were  practically  identical,  indeed,  our  Board 
said  that  it  adopted  as  its  own  the  letter  of  that  Board. 
These  letters  were  couched  in  general  terms,  and  yet 
were  afterwards  explained  by  our  Corresponding  Sec- 
retary as  committing  and  as  intended  to  commit  the 
Board  to  the  admission  that  in  principle  the  demand  of 
the  church  was  reasonable  and  ought  to  be  granted. 
Really,  there  was  something  of  truth  in  the  astonish- 
ing statement  made  by  Dr.  Ibuka,  one  of  the  Japanese 
leaders  upon  the  floor  of  the  Synod,  that  the  mission- 
aries who  opposed  the  demands  of  the  church  did  not 
understand  the  position  of  their  own  Boards. 

The  church  did  not  altogether  lack  champions  with- 
in the  circle  of  the  missionaries.  Dr.  William  Imbrie, 
already  referred  to  as  the  Presbyterian  missionary 
who  wrote  the  constitution  and  the  confession  of  faith 


MISSIONS  AND  NATIVE  CHURCH       99 

of  the  Church  of  Christ  in  Japan,  was  the  recognized 
advocate  of  the  church,  and  managed  that  side  of  the 
campaign  in  the  struggle  that  followed. 

The  first  thing  he  did  was  to  propose  to  the  Synod  a 
new  definition  of  a  Co-operating  Mission.  This  was 
adopted  in  1906,  and  is  as  follows: 

A  Co-operating  Mission  is  one  that  recognizes  the 
right  of  the  Church  of  Christ  in  Japan  to  the  general 
supervision*  of  all  evangelistic  work  done  by  the  mis- 
sion as  a  mission  within  the  church  or  in  connection 
with  it;  and  which  carries  on  such  work  under  an 
arrangement  based  on  the  foregoing  principle,  and  ap- 
proved by  the  Synod,  acting  through  the  Board  of 
Missions. 

In  this  definition  nothing  is  said  about  having  a 
joint  committee  with  equal  numbers  of  Japanese  and 
missionaries,  which  had  been  the  great  stumbling 
block,  but  this  omission  is  of  little  importance,  for  it 
is  provided  that  any  arrangement  entered  into  must 
have  the  approval  of  the  Japanese  Board  of  Missions, 
and  it  was  at  once  made  clear  that  the  said  Board 
would  insist  upon  the  joint  committee. 

The  most  significant  difference  between  this  defini- 
tion and  the  former  utterances  of  the  Synod  is  found 
in  the  open  and  definite  assertion  of  a  principle  that 
was  really  involved  in  the  entire  attitude  of  the 
Church  from  the  beginning,  viz. :  that  the  church 
might  of  right  claim  supervision  over  the  evangelistic 


*Often  translated  "general  care."  The  original,  however, 
does  not  properly  admit  so  mild  a  rendering.  It  deservedly, 
asserts  supervision,  authority,  control. 


loo       MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

work  of  the  Presbyterian  and  Reformed  churches,  so 
long  as  those  churches  wished  to  stand  in  any  sort  of 
alHance  or  connection  with  itself.  Hitherto  the  church 
had  been  content  to  ask  that  a  certain  method  of  pro- 
cedure should  be  followed.  In  this  action  she  brought 
forward  a  demand  that  not  only  this  rejected  method 
should  be  adopted,  but  that  the  principle  involved  in 
it  should  be  clearly  recognized  and  formally  accepted. 
This  principle  was  nothing  less  than  that  the  Pres- 
byterian and  Reformed  missions  should  acknowledge 
themselves  to  be,  in  their  evangelistic  work,  officially 
subordinate  to  the  Church  of  Christ  in  Japan.f  Let 
it  be  remembered  that  when  we  speak  of  the  Presby- 
terian and  Reformed  Missions,  we  really  speak  of  the 
Presbyterian  and  Reformed  Churches  of  America, 
considered  in  their  evangelistic  activity  within  the  Jap- 
anese empire.  The  question  may,  therefore,  be  fairly 
re-stated  thus:  Should  the  American  churches  work- 
ing in  Japan  henceforth  do  so  as  the  equals  of  the 
Church  in  that  country,  or  in  subordination  to  it; 
should  they  judge  for  themselves  in  regard  to  times, 
places,  methods  and  persons  through  whom  they  work, 
or  should  they  in  all  of  these  respects  work  under  the 
supervision  of  the  Japanese  church  retaining  for  them- 
selves only  so  much  control  of  their  own  work  as  is 


fThe  correctness  of  this  statement  will  be  strenuously  de- 
nied by  some,  who  hold  that  the  Church  claims  merely  a 
place  of  equal,  not  of  paramount  authority.  Let  its  readers, 
however,  carefully  examine  the  wording  of  the  Definition  as 
well  as  the  arguments  of  Drs.  A-  J.  Brown  md  Geo.  W.  Ful- 
ton, quoted  below. 


MISSIONS  AND  NATIVE  CHURCH      loi 

acceptable  to  the  church  and  continuing  it  only  so 
long  as  that  church  desires  their  assistance?  Accept- 
ing it  as  admitted  on  all  hands  that  they  do  not  de- 
sire to  establish  any  new  church,  but  to  contribute  all 
the  results  of  their  efforts  to  the  growth  of  the  Church 
of  Christ  in  Japan,  does  that  logically  involve  the 
idea  that  they  are  working  within  the  field  of  the  said 
church  by  its  permission,  or  is  it  also  possible  to  con- 
sider them  as  allies,  laboring  together  for  a  common 
object,  but  alongside  of  one  another,  as  equals,  not  in 
a  relation  of  official  supervision  on  the  one  side  and 
subordination  on  the  other? 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  this  is  no  superficial  question, 
but  a  very  deep  one,  depending  for  its  solution  upon 
our  views  of  the  nature  of  the  church  and  of  the  mis- 
sionary work:  It  is  also  a  very  broad  question,  for 
there  is  nothing  in  it  that  limits  it  to  local  conditions 
or  confines  it  to  the  Church  of  Christ  in  Japan.  I 
have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  within  missionary 
circles  it  is  a  problem  of  world-wide  importance,  for 
in  one  form  or  another,  sooner  or  later,  this  question 
will  demand  an  answer  in  every  field  and  in  the  rela- 
tions of  every  missionary  church  to  the  child  it  has 
begotten  on  foreign  soil. 

The  discussion  that  followed  was  a  notable  one,  in- 
volving much  spiritual  conflict,  argument,  negotiation 
and  correspondence.  The  result  was  a  drawn  battle. 
Three  of  the  missions,  viz. :  the  German  Reformed 
Mission  and  those  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  North, 
accepted  the  definition  formulated  by  the  Synod  and 
are  now  working  under  it.    Three  others,  that  of  the 


102       MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

Southern  Presbyterian  Mission  and  those  of  the  Re- 
formed Church  in  America,  rejected  the  definition  and 
definitely  refused  to  work  under  it.  It  must  be  ad- 
mitted that  the  three  agreeing  are  stronger  than  the 
three  in  opposition.  On  the  other  hand,  the  three  in 
opposition  have  taken  this  stand  with  practical  una- 
nimity, while  in  the  case  of  the  others  the  action  was 
taken  in  the  face  of  opposition  from  strong  minori- 
ties, and  under  pressure  from  the  home  Boards. 
Among  the  Boards,  all  but  the  Southern  Presbyterian 
Executive  Committee  approved  the  position  of  the 
Church  of  Christ.  The  stand  taken  by  our  own  Board 
was  so  decided  that  for  a  time  it  looked  as  if  a  serious 
conflict  must  take  place  between  the  Board  and  its 
missionaries,  but  that  was  happily  averted  when  the 
Board,  earnestly  protesting  its  dissent  from  the  posi- 
tion of  the  mission,  nevertheless  left  the  final  decision 
to  its  representatives  on  the  field. 

It  is,  of  course,  not  possible  here  to  go  into  the  ar- 
guments by  which  the  opposing  positions  were  sus- 
tained. Many  of  them  were  based  on  local  conditions, 
and  were  legitimate  enough  in  the  presence  of  a  con- 
crete proposal,  without  having  any  interest  for  us  as 
students  of  the  principles  of  missions.  Others, 
stripped  of  their  verbiage,  meant  nothing  else  than 
that  peace  must  be  preserved  at  any  price.  To  yield 
important  points  for  such  a  reason  may  avoid  trouble 
for  the  present,  but  sows  the  seed  of  more  trouble  in 
time  to  come. 

It  the  last  analysis,  however,  one's  position  on  this 
point,  both  in  Japan  and  elsewhere,  will  depend  on 


MISSIONS  AND  NATIVE  CHURCH     103 

one's  view  of  the  emphasis  to  be  laid  on  the  church, 
in  relation  to  the  fundamental  purpose  of  missions, 
as  developed  in  the  first  lecture  of  this  series.  This 
comes  out  clearly  in  the  following  quotations  from 
arguments  in  favor  of  approving  the  position  of  the 
Church  of  Christ  in  Japan. 

Dr.  Arthur  J.  Brown,  secretary  of  the  Presb.  Board, 
in  his  Report  on  Japan,  says : 

"The  Native  Church  does  not  exist  in  the  interest  of  the 
Mission  and  the  Board,  but  the  Mission  and  the  Board  exist 
in  the  interest  of  the  Church.  If  the  two  clash,  every  effort 
should  be  made  to  bring  about  harmony,  but  if  compromise  is 
impossible,  then  the  Mission  and  the  Board  should  yield." 

Again  he  says : 

"Our  responsibility  for  a  people  continues  after  the  Church 
is  in  the  field,  but  it  continues  through  and  in  co-operation 
with  the  Church,  and  not  independently  of  it." 

The  following  'illustration  from  the  pen  of  the 
Rev.  G.  W.  Fulton,  D.  D.,  one  of  the  Presbyterian 
missionaries,  puts  the  position  very  plainly : 

"Now,  if  I  own  a  garden,  and  a  man  comes  along  and  wants 
to  dig,  I  will  let  him  hoe  and  plant  and  water  to  his  heart's 
content,  if  he  will  only  do  it  where  and  how  I  want  it,  but  if 
not,  he  will  have  to  stay  out  of  my  garden.  He  may  think 
he  can  do  it  without  direction  from  me,  in  fact,  he  may  know 
more  about  gardening  than  I  do,  but  nevertheless  it  is  my 
garden,  and  I  am  supposed  to  have  some  ideas  as  to  how  I 
want  it,  and  I  will  certainly  insist  on  my  rights  to  have  my 
fruits  and  vegetables  grown  according  to  my  purpose  and 
desire. 


104       MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

"To  apply  this,  the  Church  of  Christ  thinks  that  we  are  try- 
ing to  work  in  its  garden,  without  its  direction.  Very  recently 
it  has  arisen  in  the  dignity  of  ownership  and  demanded  that 
either  we  work  according  to  mind  or  leave  the  premises.  The 
church  is  within  its  rights  in  this  demand,  and  the  mission 
should  recognize  this.  ...  I  would  express  my  conviction 
that  the  Church  of  Christ  has  reached  such  a  size  and  strength 
and  influence  that  the  Presbyterian  and  Reformed  Churches 
in  America  have  little  if  any  moral  right  to  continue  Christian 
work  in  this  country  for  any  length  of  time  unless  they  can 
arrange  to  conduct  their  enterprise  in  connection  with  that 
church." 

Thus  far  Dr.  Fulton. 

Here  we  have  the  naked  issue.  Upon  the  basis  of 
the  Church  Establishment  theory  of  Missions,  dis- 
cussed and  rejected  in  our  first  lecture,  these  men  are 
right,  and  if  they  are  right  then  the  demands  of  the 
Church  in  Japan  also  are  just  and  reasonable. 

Upon  the  basis  of  the  theory  we  have  held  to  be 
the  true  one;  that  it  is  our  purpose  to  overthrow  the 
heathenism  of  Japan  and  to  plant  Christianity  in  its 
place,  we  oppose  to  the  above  view  a  most  emphatic 
contradiction.  The  American  churches  hold  their  com- 
mission to  evangelize  Japan,  not  from  the  church  they 
have  themselves  called  into  being,  but  from  a  much 
higher  source.  Their  responsibility  to  perform  it  does 
not  continue  through  and  in  co-operation  with  the 
Church,  as  Dr.  Brown  says,  but  independently  of  it,  a 
responsibility  to  God  alone.  It  is  their  earnest  wish  to 
continue  to  do  this  work  in  alliance  with  the  Church 
of  Christ  in  Japan,  but  such  an  alliance  is  too  dearly 
bought  if  it  involves  an  acknowledgment  of  subordina- 


MISSIONS  AND  NATIVE  CHURCH     105 

tion.  The  alleged  right  of  the  church  to  demand  that 
either  we  work  according  to  its  mind  or  leave  the 
premises,  as  Dr.  Fulton  states  it,  is  absolutely  denied. 
Dr.  Brown  asserts  that:  The  Mission  and  the  Board 
exist  in  the  interest  of  the  Church.  We  admit  no  such 
thing.  This  is  to  substitute  the  means  for  the  end. 
The  Mission  and  the  Board  exist  to  evangelize  and 
Christianize  Japan.  As  a  means  to  that  end  the  Church 
of  Christ  in  Japan  was  established.  We  neither  desire 
nor  intend  to  establish  any  other,  but  we  would  estab- 
lish ten  more,  if  necessary,  to  attain  the  end. 

Historically,  we  charge  upon  the  theory  here  con- 
demned the  colossal  and  disastrous  miscalculation  of 
the  latter  eighties,  the  discouragement  and  retirement 
of  many  a  young  missionary,  and  the  absurd  and  par- 
alyzing misapprehensions  so  current  in  the  American 
churches  in  regard  to  the  conditions  of  missionary 
work  in  Japan,  for  none  of  these  things  could  have 
been  suffered  but  for  the  virus  of  the  sentiment:  The 
Mission  and  the  Board  exist  in  the  interest  of  the 
Church. 

Turning  to  the  future,  we  are  confident  that  a  suc- 
cessful and  vigorous  work  is  ultimately  possible  only 
to  that  mission  which,  cultivating  relations  of  the 
closest  alliance  and  the  most  cordial  harmony  with  the 
native  church,  so  far  as  that  may  be  possible  by  the 
exercise  of  every  Christian  grace  and  virtue,  never- 
theless remembers  that  it  represents  an  American 
church  in  its  activity  "ad  extra,"  and  that,  therefore 
refuses  to  surrender  its  power  of  independent  initiative 
and  operation,  maintaining  always  a  clear  vision  of  its 


io6       MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

purpose  and  a  keen  sense  of  responsibility  to  preach 
Christ  to  the  heathen,  in  alHance  with  the  native 
church  organization,  if  it  may,  without  it  if  it  must — 
subordinate,  never. 

Let  no  one  attribute  such  a  position  to  race  pride, 
to  a  love  of  power,  or  to  an  obstinate  unwillingness  to 
be  subordinate  where  sudorbination  is  in  order.  It 
springs  from  none  of  these  things,  but  from  rejection 
of  the  fundamental  principle  upon  which  the  notion  of 
the  subordination  of  the  American  churches  in  their 
work  in  Japan  is  based.  If  the  evangelization  and 
Christianization  of  Japan  is  the  task  of  the  Japanese 
church,  and  if  we  are  there  merely  to  assist  in  what 
is  really  her  work  and  not  ours,  by  all  means  let  us  be 
subordinate.  But  in  that  case  the  Japanese  church  has 
the  right  not  only  to  give  directions,  but  to  indicate 
whether  it  wishes  many  missionaries  or  few,  and  of 
what  kind.  It  is  not  surprising  that  we  find  words  like 
this  in  Dr.  Brown's  report : 

The  Japanese  leaders  insisted  that  appointments 
should  be  limited  to  men  of  first-class  abiHty  who  can 
co-operate  with  the  Japanese  church.  Missions  that 
transfer  to  others  the  right  of  judging  how  many  men 
and  what  sort  of  men  are  needed  for  the  work  will 
hear  more  of  this  insistence  in  time  to  come. 

Moreover,  in  such  a  case  the  church  has  at  once  the 
right  to  indicate  when  our  services  are  no  longer  re- 
quired. If  we  are  merely  assistants  of  the  church,  to 
do  a  work  that  is  really  hers,  this  follows  as  a  mat- 
ter of  course.  Could  we,  then,  urge  young  men  to 
offer  themselves  to  be  missionaries  in  Japan?    Could 


MISSIONS  AND  NATIVE  CHURCH     107 

we  assure  them  that  there  was  a  Hfe  work  waiting  for 
them  in  that  country  ?  I  think  not,  if  the  desire  of  the 
Japanese  church  is  to  be  the  standard,  for  I  do  not  see 
how  any  one  can  possibly  predict  the  spirit  and  temper 
of  that  church,  ten,  twenty  or  thirty  years  hence.  If 
we  are  officially  subordinate  to  that  church  organiza- 
tion, I  am  not  at  all  sure  that  there  is  a  life  work  for 
a  young  man  in  Japan.  Accordingly,  where  you  find 
missionaries  in  Japan  retiring  without  apparent  cau?e, 
or  discussing  the  approaching  end  of  missionary  work 
in  that  country,  or  advising  young  men  to  seek  fields 
of  labor  elsewhere,  or  insisting  that  only  a  few  men  of 
extraordinary  talents  should  be  sent,  you  will  almost 
invariably  find  that  they  are  adherents  of  this  idea, 
that  we  are  merely  the  helpers  of  the  native  church. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  as  a  church  have  a  pri- 
mary responsibility  of  our  own,  to  preach  Christ 
where  He  has  not  been  named,  then  large  and  popu- 
lous districts  issue  to  us  the  Macedonian  call.  It  is 
because  I  hold  this  view,  because  our  missions  in 
Japan  hold  it,  and  because  our  Board  has  had  the  wis- 
dom to  defer  to  the  almost  unanimous  convictions  of 
its  missionaries  on  this  vital  point  that  I  am  able  with 
heart  and  soul  to  extend  to  the  students  of  this  sem- 
inary a  pressing  invitation  to  come  out  to  Japan,  as- 
suring you  that  there  is  work  enough  and  to  spare  for 
us  and  for  our  children  after  us. 


CHAPTER  V. 

I 
The  Evangelistic   Work   After  the   Establish- 
ment OF  THE  Church. 

In  the  previous  lecture  we  discussed  the  nature  and 
function  of  a  mission,  and  the  relation  which  the  mis- 
sions bear  to  the  native  church.  In  the  present  lec- 
ture we  shall  first  consider  the  relations  between  the 
native  church  and  those  congregations  and  believers 
who  are  connected  with  the  missions,  and  then  turn 
our  attention  to  the  task  which  the  missions  have  to 
accomplish,  the  persons  through  whom  and  the  meth- 
ods by  which  that  work  is  to  be  done. 

From  the  organization  of  the  Church  of  Christ  in 
Japan  until  the  year  1905,  the  relations  between  that 
church  and  the  congregations  receiving  help  from  one 
of  our  missions  were  very  simple.  All  believers  be- 
longed either  to  an  organized  local  church  or  to  what 
was  called  a  "Preaching  Place,"  which  was  a  group  of 
believers  too  small  to  be  organized  into  a  church.  In 
the  case  of  the  local  church  there  were,  of  course, 
elders  and  deacons,  who  had  the  rights  and  duties  con- 
nected with  those  offices.  The  "preaching  places" 
stood  under  the  direct  spiritual  oversight  of  the 
classis.  Local  affairs  were  managed  by  a  committee 
selected  from  the  membership,  but  as  there  was  no 
consistory,  the  important  spiritual  functions  of  admit- 
ting members  to  the  communion  and,  in  case  just  cause 
existed,  debarring    them    from  the    same,  were  per- 


THE  EVANGELISTIC  WORK  109 

formed  by  the  classis,  acting  through  a  committee  of 
ministers  and  elders.  Besides  these  fully  organized 
churches  and  ''preaching  places,"  there  were  many 
places  where  only  a  few  believers  were  found. 
These  had  their  membership  in  the  nearest  organiza- 
tion, and  were  thus  subject  to  the  oversight  of  the 
proper  authorities.  It  will  be  noticed  that  no  eccle- 
siastical function  of  any  kind  was  exercised  by  the 
missionary.  He  could,  indeed,  baptize  whomever  he 
thought  fit.  That  right  missionaries  have  exercised 
since  the  days  of  Philip  the  evangelist,  and  the  propri- 
ety of  their  doing  so  is  not  open  to  dispute,  but  no 
such  baptism  by  a  missionary  made  the  baptized  per- 
son a  member  of  the  Church  of  Christ  in  Japan.  He 
could  become  such  only  when  regularly  admitted. 

Alongside  of  the  ecclesiastical  supervision  exer- 
cised by  the  Church,  there  was  another  sort  of  super- 
vision that  was  exercised  by  the  mission.  This  was 
the  practical  oversight  resulting  from  the  fact  that 
the  missionaries  were  the  representatives  of  the  Amer- 
ican churches  that  were  assisting  the  Japanese  with 
their  maturity  of  religious  experience,  their  deeper 
spiritual  knowledge,  and  their  superior  financial 
strength.  At  first  all  the  fully  organized  churches  were 
receiving  financial  assistance  from  the  missions,  and 
the  preachers  who  ministered  to  the  smaller  groups  of 
believers  were  in  their  employ.  To  withdraw  the  as^ 
sistance  given  a  church,  or  to  discharge  the  evangelist 
was  obviously  within  the  authority  of  the  mission,  and 
became  its  duty  as  soon  as  it  was  clear  that  the  funds 
were  not  well  bestowed, 


no       MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

Under  these  circumstances  practically  everybody  in 
the  church  had  a  two- fold  connection:  on  the  one  hand 
to  the  mission,  as  a  member  of  a  supported  congrega- 
tion or  as  an  evangelist ;  and  on  the  other  to  a  church 
or  presbytery.  There  was  no  conflict  between  these 
relations,  since  the  one  form  of  supervision  was 
strictly  practical  and  the  other  was  spiritual;  the  one 
temporary,  and  the  other  permanent.  No  sooner  did  a 
church  attain  to  self-support  than  all  connection  with 
the  mission  ceased ;  no  sooner  was  an  evangelist  called 
to  the  pastorate  of  such  a  self-supporting  congrega- 
tion than  the  same  thing  took  place  in  his  case.  As  the 
self-supporting  churches  were  certain,  in  the  course 
of  time,  greatly  to  exceed,  both  in  numbers  and  in  in- 
fluence, the  work  that  had  any  connection  with  the 
missions,  one  had  only  to  wait  for  time  to  bring  about 
a  natural  and  easy  solution  of  the  difficulties  and  prob- 
lems involved.  In  spite  of  all  the  discussions  of  the 
past  few  years,  this  arrangement  still  seems  to  me  to 
be  based  upon  sound  principles.  It  gives  to  the  church 
the  things  that  are  the  church's,  and  to  the  mission  the 
things  that  are  the  mission's. 

The  first  important  change  took  place  in  this  situa- 
tion six  years  ago,  when  the  Synod  passed  a  resolution 
providing  that  only  self-supporting  churches  should  be 
permitted  to  exist  in  the  Church  of  Christ  in  Japan, 
and  that,  accordingly,  all  the  churches  unable  to  sup- 
port themselves  after  two  years  should  become 
"preaching  places."  The  necessary  amendments 
were  made  to  the  constitution,  and  the  name 
of    "preaching    places"    was    changed    to   "mission 


THE  EVANGELISTIC  WORK  in 

churches,"  which  does  not  imply  that  these  organiza- 
tions receive  support  from  the  missions  (some  of 
them,  in  fact,  do  not),  but  only  that  they  are  "mis- 
sion enterprises"  as  that  term  is  often  used  in  this 
country,  to  designate  something  that  is  expected  to  de- 
velop into  a  church  in  the  course  of  time. 

Much  can  be  said  in  defense  of  this  action.  The 
idea  that  no  congregation  should  be  recognized  as  a 
full-fledged,  self-governing  local  church  until  it  can 
support  itself  is  not  peculiar  to  the  Church  of  Christ 
in  Japan.  In  our  Amoy  Mission  it  is  the  rule,  and  has, 
I  think,  been  the  rule  from  the  beginning,  that  no 
group  shall  be  organized  as  a  church  before  it  is  ready 
to  assume  self-support.  The  Council  of  Missions  in 
Japan  had  already,  in  1897,  recommended  that  this 
rule  should  be  adopted  in  regard  to  all  churches  or- 
ganized thereafter. 

This  practice  has  also  obvious  advantages.  The 
company  of  believers  is  not  endowed  with  the  func- 
tions and  responsibilities  of  a  church  before  it  is  ready 
to  exercise  those  functions  and  to  discharge  those 
obligations.  The  chief  functions  of  a  local  congrega- 
tion are  to  govern  itself  through  elders  and  deacons 
and  to  provide  for  the  regular  preaching  of  the  gospel. 
Neither  of  these  functions  can  be  perfectly  discharged 
so  long  as  the  congregation  is  dependent  on  a  mission. 
Self-government  is  interfered  with  even  under  the 
best  conditions  so  long  as  the  church  is  bound  to  con- 
sult an  outside  party,  the  mission,  in  some  of  its  most 
important  acts,  such  as  the  choice  of  a  pastor.  That 
it  stands  under  the  authority  of  the  presbytery  is  no 


112       MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

such  interference  with  its  liberties,  because  the  author- 
ity of  that  body  is  recognized  and  provided  for  in  the 
church  government,  but  when  a  congregation  is  really 
governed,  in  part,  by  a  mission,  a  body  quite  outside 
of  the  denomination  to  which  the  congregation  be- 
longs, its  self-government  is  certainly  imperfect  in 
fact,  however  much  it  may  be  admitted  in  theory. 

Another  consideration  that  influenced  the  Synod  in 
passing  such  a  rule  was  a  strong  desire  to  show  before 
the  world  that  the  denomination  known  as  the  Church 
of  Christ  in  Japan  was  in  no  sense  under  the  govern- 
ment of  foreigners.  This  could  not  be  maintained  so 
long  as  the  representatives  of  mission-aided  churches 
sat  in  presbytery  and  Synod,  with  full  powers.  Hence 
all  supported  churches  were  disbanded  and  reorgan- 
ized upon  a  provisional  basis,  having  no  real  elders 
and  deacons,  only  a  committee.  Their  representatives 
were  permitted  to  come  into  the  presbyteries  as  ad- 
visory, or  corresponding  members,  but  not  to  vote. 
This  action  effectually  eliminated  from  the  denomina 
tional  assemblies  all  votes  that  had  any  connection 
with  the  foreigners. 

We  can  thus  see  how  the  Synod  came  to  take  this 
action,  and  what  it  was  intended  to  accomplish.  It  is 
another  question  whether  such  a  rule  ought  to  be  ap- 
proved upon  the  basis  of  the  system  of  ecclesiastical 
government  to  which  the  Church  stands  committed. 
It  does  not  seem  to  me  to  be  defensible,  upon  those  or 
upon  any  other  sound  and  scriptural  conceptions  of 
the  nature  of  the  church,  since  it  sets  up  a  financial 
standard  for  the  exercise  of  spiritual  functions.    The 


THE  EVANGELISTIC  WORK  113 

way  to  test  any  principle  is  to  apply  it,  not  to  abnor- 
mal, but  to  normal  conditions.  If  the  principle  is 
sound,  it  must  be  applicable  to  the  settled  and  estab- 
lished conditions  of  church  life.  It  seems  clear  that 
it  would  not  be  admitted  to  be  sound  when  so  applied. 
Can  any  one  say  that  the  churches  assisted  by  our 
Board  of  Domestic  Missions  are  not  real  churches  and 
are  not  competent  to  perform  the  real  functions  of 
churches  just  because  they  lack  money  enough  to  pay 
all  their  expenses  ?  What  possible  basis  can  be  found  in 
Scripture,  or  in  the  practice  of  the  Christian  church 
down  the  centuries,  for  the  requirement  that  a  body  of 
believers  must  have  a  certain  degree  of  financial 
strength  before  it  can  be  organized  as  a  church? 

However,  to  return  to  Japan,  the  deed  was  done, 
and  all  churches  not  self-supporting  lost  their  stand- 
ing as  churches  in  1907.  In  the  meantime  the  defini- 
tion of  a  Co-operating  Mission  had  been  adopted,  and 
the  missions  had  been  invited  to  agree  to  its  provis- 
ions. Since  only  one  mission  had  accepted  this  invita- 
tion by  the  time  the  Synod  met,  in  1907,  that  body  took 
up  for  consideration  the  question  what  was  to  be  done 
with  those  missions  that  refused,  and  the  following 
resolution  was  passed : 

In  order  to  preserve  the  unity  of  the  Church  of  Christ  in 
Japan  a  clear  distinction  shall  be  made  between  the  evangelis- 
tic work  of 

(a)  Missions  which  by  September  30th,  1908,  do  not  co- 
operate according  to  the  Definition, 

(b)  of  our  own  church,  and 

(c)  of  Co-operating  Missions, 
8 


114       MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

and  it  shall  then  be  made  perfectly  clear  that  the  former  shall 
have  no  connection  whatever  with  the  Church  of  Christ  in 
Japan. 

Dr.  Ibuka,  President  of  the  Meiji  Gakuin,  issued  an 
explanatory  statement,  in  which  he  says : 

By  a  clear  distinction  between  the  evangelistic  work  of  those 
missions  which  do  not  co-operate  and  that  of  the  Church  and 
of  the  Missions  which  do  co-operate  is  not  meant  a  simple 
distinction  in  classification,  but  a  real  separation  in  fact. 

Such  aided  churches  and  such  members  of  aided  churches 
as  decide  to  remain  in  connection  with  the  Church  of  Christ 
in  Japan  will  be  aided  by  the  Church  to  the  best  of  its  ability. 
No  undue  pressure  will  be  brought  to  bear.  Aided  churches 
which  prefer  to  retain  their  connection  with  non-co-operating 
missions  will  be  entirely  free  to  do  so,  but  they  must  take 
their  choice.  The  natural  result  will  be  that  non-co-operating 
missions  and  the  aided  churches  which  retain  their  connection 
with  them  will  organize  a  new  church,  or  new  churches. 

Bluntly  stated,  this  meant  that  after  September, 
1908,  a  certain  number  of  weak  congregations  and 
their  members  would  be  put  out  of  the  Church  of 
Christ  in  Japan,  bag  and  baggage,  if  they  continued  to 
receive  assistance  from  missions  which  refused  to  de- 
clare themselves  officially  subordinate  to  the  Synod. 
There  was  brought  against  these  assisted  congrega- 
tions and  the  missions  with  which  they  were  associated 
absolutely  no  charge  of  irregularity  or  unfaithfulness 
in  conduct  or  doctrine.  This  action  was  taken  by  the 
representatives  of  the  self-supporting  churches  almost 
every  one  of  which  owed  its  existence  and  develop- 
ment to  the  very  connection  which  had  now  become  so 


THE  EVANGELISTIC  WORK  its 

great  an  offense  that  those  who  received  it  could  not  be 
tolerated  within  the  church ! 

This  proposal  naturally  aroused  much  opposition. 
One  prominent  Japanese  minister,  a  teacher  in  the 
theological  department  of  the  Meiji  Gakuin,  compared 
the  action  of  the  Synod  to  the  murder  of  the  children 
in  Bethlehem,  by  King  Herod.  The  opposition  to  it 
secured,  by  parliamentary  manoeuvering,  a  temporary 
majority  in  the  Presbytery  of  Tokyo,  and  took  advan- 
tage of  that  fact  to  memorialize  the  Synod  to  rescind 
this  action.  The  memorial  was  rejected,  but  the  oppo- 
sition to  Synod's  action  was  not  altogether  without  ef- 
fect. It  was  one  of  the  contributing  causes  which  led 
to  the  adoption,  in  the  Synod  of  1909,  of  what  is 
called  the  "Affiliation"  plan.  Although  the  Synod  of 
1907  had  declared  in  the  most  emphatic  terms  of  which 
the  Japanese  language  is  capable  that  there  should  be 
absolutely  no  connection  between  the  evangelistic 
work  of  a  non-co-operating  mission  and  the  Church  of 
Christ  in  Japan,  and  had  apparently  contemplated  with 
equanimity  the  prospect  of  the  organization  of  a  new 
denomination,  it  had  relented  a  little  by  the  fall  of 
1909,  and  offered  a  kind  of  compromise  in  certain  Ar- 
ticles of  Agreement. 

Briefly  stated,  the  missions  undertook,  in  these  arti- 
cles, to  organize  no  churches  and  to  employ  as  evan- 
gelists only  men  who  had  been  examined  and  licensed 
by  the  Church.  Further,  that  when  the  congregations 
gathered  by  them  became  churches,  they  should  apply 
for  organization  to  the  Church  of  Christ  in  Japan.  As 
the  missions  had  all  along  observed  these  practices, 


ii6       MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

consent  to  such  conditions  was  not  difficult.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  missions  obtained,  for  themselves,  defi- 
nite recognition  as  allies  of  this  church.  The  exclusion 
of  the  congregations  receiving  aid  was  not  revoked.  It 
was  even  re-affirmed  in  the  words :  "Qiurches  and 
preaching  places  aided  by  the  Missions  shall  have  no 
organic  connection  with  the  Church  of  Christ  in  Ja- 
pan;" but  at  the  same  time  they  were  directed  to  re- 
port to  Presbytery  annually  their  spiritual  and  financial 
condition,  and  their  statistics  were  to  be  given  in  a  sep- 
arate column.  They  were  thus  quasi  members  or  step- 
children of  the  Church.  Japanese  evangelists  and  min- 
isters connected  with  the  missions  were  to  have  the 
standing  of  Advisory  or  Corresponding  Members  in 
Presbytery  and  Synod. 

The  missions  that  had  refused  to  co-operate  accord- 
ing to  the  definition  of  1906  promptly  accepted  this 
compromise.  It  did  not  require  anything  of  them 
which  they  were  unwilling  to  do,  and  as  for  the  action 
in  cutting  ofif  the  aided  churches,  while  they  strongly 
disapproved  it,  they  considered  it  a  question  between 
those  churches  and  the  Synod,  with  which  they  were 
not  obliged  to  interfere.  If  there  had  been  any  desire 
to  organize  a  new  denomination,  the  circumstances  of- 
fered a  splendid  occasion,  but  every  one  was  sincerely 
anxious  to  avoid  such  a  calamity,  and  so  the  ousted 
congregations  were  advised  that  it  was  better  for  the 
time  being  to  bear  the  injustice  of  the  Synod's  action 
patiently  than  to  rush  into  the  evils  of  a  schism. 

That  the  action  was  unjust  surely  requires  no  argu- 
ment.    Considered  from  the  standpoint  of  the  Scrip- 


THE  EVANGELISTIC  WORK  117 

tures  or  upon  the  basis  of  any  kind  of  ecclesiastical 
government  ever  seen  in  the  Church  universal,  the  ac- 
tion of  the  Synod  in  excluding  from  denominational 
fellowship  a  number  of  congregations  and  members 
against  whom  no  offense  was  even  alleged  is  so  extra- 
ordinary, so  unjustifiable,  so  inherently  unreasonable 
and  un-Christian  that  it  is  difficult  to  discuss  it  in 
terms  of  respect.  If  any  one  should  build  upon  this 
whole  transaction  and  certain  other  things  an  argu- 
ment that  the  Church  of  Christ  in  Japan  is  not  yet 
really  fit  for  self-government,  it  would  not  be  easy  to 
answer  him.  When  we  think  of  the  many  excellent 
qualities  of  faith  and  zeal  which  are  abundantly  seen 
in  the  life  of  the  Church  of  Christ  in  Japan,  we  must 
admit  that  her  views  of  church  government  are  the 
least  respectable  part  of  her  outfit.  What  shall  we  do, 
then,  as  missionaries  and  supporters  of  the  missionary 
work  in  Japan  ?  Nothing  at  all,  but  to  be  patient  with 
the  church,  to  pray  for  it,  and  upon  proper  opportun- 
ity to  advocate  the  highest  conceptions  of  the  spiritual 
nature  and  divine  authority  of  the  church  and  its  gov- 
ernment. It  is  of  no  use  to  scold  the  church,  or  to  rail 
at  it.  Let  us  wait  calmly,  patiently,  prayerfully.  Bet- 
ter days  will  come  by  and  by.  There  is  already  a 
considerable  party  that  knows  better,  as  witness  the 
action  of  the  Tokyo  presbytery.  Many  churches  and 
individuals  who  have  been  cut  off  will  presently  re- 
sume their  places  in  the  Church.  With  deeper  spirit- 
uality and  growing  maturity  of  conception  will  come 
other  thoughts,  and  sooner  or  later  this  matter  will  be 
set  right.     Only,  we  shall  take  good  care  to  maintain 


Ii8       MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

our  independence  as  missions  and  see  to  it  that  the 
Church  of  Christ  in  Japan  exercises  no  control  over 
our  work,  even  in  part. 

Certainly  the  very  worst  thing  we  could  do  in  con- 
nection with  all  the  problems  hitherto  discussed  would 
be  to  make  the  attitude  of  the  native  church  a  reason 
for  being  less  concerned  over  the  spiritual  destitution 
of  Japan.  Let  us  be  true,  in  our  mental  and  spiritual 
attitude  no  less  than  in  our  official  action,  to  our  fund- 
amental conception  of  the  missionary  purpose,  viz., 
that  missions  and  missionaries  exist,  not  for  the  bene- 
fit of  the  church,  whether  at  home  or  abroad,  but  for 
those  who  are  without;  that  our  place  and  work  lie, 
not  "ad  intra"  to  the  church,  even  to  the  church  in  a 
heathen  country,  but  "ad  extra"  to  it,  in  spiritually  un- 
explored, unoccupied,  and  unconquered  territory.  Our 
relations  to  the  Church  are  indeed  important.  If  prop- 
erly adjusted  (as  I  think  they  will  be,  in  course  of 
time)  they  will  help,  and  if  improperly  adjusted  they 
will  hinder  us  greatly,  but  when  all  is  said  and  done, 
the  importance  of  these  relations  is  secondary  and  not 
primary.  The  primary  thing  is  our  calling  as  sent  to 
the  gentiles,  to  open  their  eyes,  and  to  turn  them  from 
darkness  to  light  and  from  the  power  of  Satan  unto 
God,  that  they  may  receive  forgiveness  of  sins  and  in- 
heritance among  them  that  are  sanctified.  We  are 
unfaithful  to  this  calling  if  we  allow  the  defects  and 
mistakes  of  the  native  church  to  dampen  our  ardor 
for  the  accomplishment  of  our  work. 

It  is  not  easy  for  one  who  has  never  been  in  Japan 
to  realize  the  greatness  of  the  missionary  task  that  still 


THE  EVANGELISTIC  WORK  119 

remains  in  that  country.  The  impression  made  by  all 
the  extravagant  accounts  and  predictions  in  regard  to 
the  progress  of  the  work  still  lingers,  so  that  even  in 
well  informed  circles  the  truth  is  heard  with  surprise, 
and  is  considered  well  nigh  incredible.  The  fact  is  that 
in  proportion  to  her  population  Japan  has  fewer  Chris- 
tians than  India,  and  not  half  so  many  as  Africa.  In 
Africa  the  figure  is  one  Protestant  communicant  to 
324  of  the  population,  in  India,  one  to  563,  and  in  Ja- 
pan one  to  851.*  Not  only  that,  but  the  population  of 
Japan  is  increasing  at  the  rate  of  half  a  million  a  year, 
which  means  that  every  day  there  are  1,350  more  Japa- 
nese to  be  evangelized  than  there  were  the  day  before, 
and  that  the  number  of  unevangelized  heathen  in  the 
country  is  greater  to-day  by  ten  millions  than  it  was 
when  the  first  missionaries  set  foot  upon  its  shores.  To 
put  the  same  facts  in  another  way,  the  increase  in  the 
number  of  unevangelized  Japanese  every  three  months 
is  greater  than  the  total  number  of  all  the  converts 
of  all  the  missions  since  the  beginning  of  the  work. 

It  results  that  there  are  extensive  districts  where 
the  gospel  has  never  yet  been  preached.  Some  years 
ago  I  was  travelling  through  one  of  the  fertile  dis- 
tricts in  Kiushiu,  and  I  counted  on  the  surface  of  the 
plain  sixteen  or  seventeen  villages.  Many  of  the  peo- 
ple were  at  work  in  the  fields,  and  the  country  was  like 
a  great  bee-hive.  The  question  could  not  help  arising 
how  soon  these  villages  would  hear  the  gospel.  It 
has  not  been  answered  yet,  for  so  far  as  I  know  there 


♦Calculated  from  the  statistics  of  the  Edinburgh  Conference. 


120       MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

has  not  yet  been  a  single  sermon  preached  in  that 
district.  A  similar  impression  was  made  upon  me  on 
another  occasion,  when  travelling  by  steamer  with  a 
friend  along  the  coast.  Village  after  village  had  been 
passed  when  I  asked  him  how  soon  he  thought  the  gos- 
pel would  penetrate  to  these  remote  places.  He  re- 
plied sadly,  but  with  profound  conviction :  "These  peo- 
ple will  die  in  their  sins,  and  their  children  after  them, 
before  they  have  any  chance  to  hear  the  gospel  of 
Qirist." 

As  there  are  extensive  districts,  so  there  are  great 
classes  yet  unreached.  The  Protestant  movement  in 
Japan  is  undeniably  to  some  extent  a  class  movement. 
Almost  untouched  as  yet  are  the  artisan,  merchant  and 
farming  classes,  comprising  nine-tenths  of  the  people. 
Especially  must  one  be  impressed  with  the  almost 
hopeless  case  of  the  agricultural  population.  "Climb 
up  any  hill  and  look  out  over  the  plain  where  the  rice 
fields  stretch  out  like  a  great  green  lake  dotted  over 
with  islands.  Every  wooded  "island''  is  a  village  full 
of  people,  and  for  every  hamlet  you  see  there  are  hun- 
dreds which  you  can  not  see,  hidden  away  in  the 
mountain  valley  or  by  the  deep  sea  inlet."  (Edin- 
burgh Conference  Reports,  Commission  4,  p.  79). 

Here  are  the  "regions  beyond"  of  Japan.  The  na- 
tive church,  however  zealous,  is  not  in  direct  contact 
with  these  people,  and  can  reach  them  only  by  definite- 
ly sending  out  men  as  missionaries  from  herself.  This 
she  has  not  the  strength  to  do,  except  to  a  very  limited 
extent.  In  those  villages  lies  the  missionary  field  of 
the  future. 


THE  EVANGELISTIC  WORK  121 

The  Christianization  of  Japan,  considered  as  a 
whole,  involves  all  the  work  "ad  intra"  as  well  as  the 
work  "ad  extra",  and  in  this  view  the  position  of 
greatest  responsibility  and  leadership  belongs  unques- 
tionably to  the  native  church.  In  the  definitely  "ad 
extra"  work,  however,  she  stands  side  by  side  with  her 
American  sisters,  able  to  furnish  but  a  small  fraction 
of  the  men  and  means  required.  The  remaining  heath- 
en, whom  she  cannot  touch,  make  the  same  demand 
upon  the  American  church  that  is  made  by  a  similar 
mass  of  unevangelized  humanity  anywhere  in  the 
world. 

The  response  of  the  American  church  to  this  de- 
mand must  be  made  primarily  through  her  own  sons 
and  daughters,  that  is,  through  missionaries.  Finan- 
cial help  is  not  what  is  most  needed.  This,  at  best,  will 
only  avail  to  enable  the  Japanese  church  to  make  full 
use  of  the  Christian  manhood  and  womanhood  she  al- 
ready possesses.  Much  more  precious  and  important 
than  that  is  the  importation  of  deep  spiritual  life,  un- 
shaken religious  conviction,  and  intense  evangelistic 
fervor,  all  this  embodied  in  consecrated  and  highly  ed- 
ucated Christian  manhood  and  womanhood.  This  is 
the  highest  contribution  which  any  country  can  make 
to  the  welfare  of  another,  the  most  costly  to  give  and 
the  most  precious  to  receive. 

Such  men  and  women  will  find  now  and  for  unmeas- 
ured years  to  come,  an  abundant  opportunity  for  the 
highest  usefulness  in  Japan,  and  that,  first  of  all,  in 
their  individual  work,  as  preachers,  Sunday  School 
teachers,  personal  workers,  in  house  to  house  visita- 


122       MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

tion,  in  tract  distribution,  and  in  numerous  other  ways. 
In  this  work  they  will  encounter  great  difficulties,  but 
if  they  are  worthy  of  the  missionary  calling  they  will 
not  be  daunted  by  them.  They  must  learn  the  lan- 
guage, let  them  do  it.  The  Japanese  language  is  not 
the  bugbear  that  some  make  of  it.  It  is  true  that,  tak- 
en as  a  whole,  in  its  spoken  and  written,  lower  and 
higher,  scientific  and  idiomatic  aspects  it  is  probably 
the  most  difficult  language  the  human  race  has  ever 
known,  but  it  is  also  true  that  a  missionary  need  not 
learn  all  of  it,  and  that  so  much  of  it  as  one  needs  to 
do  good  missionary  work  is  not  beyond  the  reach  of 
any  person  of  fair  ability,  good  education,  and  willing- 
ness to  study. 

The  habits  and  customs  of  the  people  are  strange  to 
us  and  their  ways  of  thinking  are  not  like  our  own. 
Very  well,  let  the  missionary  go  to  work  with  sympa- 
thy and  patience  and  much  of  this  darkness  will  be 
cleared  up.  If  he  is  willing  to  be  all  things  to  all  men 
he  can  learn  to  eat  unwonted  food  with  chop-sticks,  to 
take  off  his  shoes  when  he  enters  the  house,  to  sleep 
on  the  floor,  and  to  do  numerous  other  things  accord- 
ing to  native  customs.  Let  him  honestly  seek  to  find 
common  ground  with  the  people,  assuming  that  there 
is  some  good  sensible  reason  behind  even  the  strangest 
customs,  and  little  by  little  he  will  have  gained  their 
confidence,  will  feel  at  home  among  them,  and  will  dis- 
cover that  the  things  in  which  men  are  alike  are  far 
more  numerous  and  of  profounder  importance  than 
the  things  in  which  they  differ.    Meanwhile  the  people 


THE  EVANGELISTIC  WORK  123 

will  discover  the  same  thing  in  regard  to  the  mission- 
ary, and  then  the  way  is  open  for  real  influence. 

To  be  sure,  there  are  difficulties  that  are  never  fully 
overcome.  To  the  last  he  remains  a  foreigner,  and 
hence  he  is  in  many  points  at  a  serious  disadvantage  as 
compared  with  a  Japanese  of  equal  ability  and  educa- 
tion. This  conscious  and  hopeless  inferiority,  of  which 
he  is  often  reminded,  sometimes  in  a  friendly  and 
sometimes  in  an  unfriendly  way,  remains  one  of  the 
bitterest  things  for  a  high  spirited  American,  a  con- 
stant school  of  humility  and  self-control.  However, 
it  is  also  true  that  there  are  circumstances  and  places 
where  he  has  the  advantage.  Take,  for  example  one 
of  the  smaller  towns  where  there  is  a  Middle  School. 
In  such  a  place  the  Japanese  evangelist  will  often  re- 
ceive the  cold  shoulder,  while  an  American  missionary 
is  welcomed  with  open  arms.  The  reason  is  because 
students  and  teachers  of  such  a  school  hope  to  secure 
his  assistance  in  mastering  the  intricacies  of  the  Eng- 
lish tongue.  If  he  is  willing  to  be  accommodating  and 
friendly,  the  way  is  open  to  acquaintance  and  influence 
such  as  a  Japanese  evangelist  does  not  enjoy  in  the 
same  community.  To  many  ardent  spirits  among  the 
students  such  an  American  resident  in  the  town  is  a 
prize,  and  they  are  ready  eagerly  to  absorb  from  him 
all  they  can  of  the  great  outside  world  from  which  he 
has  come  and  of  which  they  have  heard  so  much.  This 
feeling  no  longer  obtains  so  greatly  in  the  largest  cit- 
ies, but  in  many  small  places  it  is  yet  possible  for  the 
missionary  to  become  to  a  select  circle  their  interpreter 
of  Western  ideas,  civilization,  and  religion,  in  much 


124       MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

the  same  way  as  the  earliest  missionaries  were  to  the 
men  now  at  the  head  of  the  nation.  No  one  can  begin 
to  measure  the  extent  of  the  influence  that  may  be  thus 
exerted.  It  has  long  been  my  dream  that  there  might 
be  a  missionary  family  in  every  town  where  there  is  a 
Middle  School. 

Whatever  the  difficulties  to  be  overcome,  the  first 
duty  of  the  missionary  is  to  approve  himself  as  a  faith- 
ful and  capable  individual  worker.  It  is  sometimes 
said  that  the  great  work  of  the  missionary  is  not  to  do 
the  work  himself  but  to  train  natives  to  do  it,  and  cer- 
tainly this  contains  a  great  truth,  but  how  in  the  world 
is  he  to  train  others  to  do  a  work  that  he  has  never 
done  himself?  And  how  can  he  expect  men  to  seek 
training  at  his  hands  for  work  in  which  he  has  never 
shown  himself  active  and  skillful?  Whatever,  there- 
fore, be  his  hopes  for  the  future,  the  first  thing  for  the 
missionary  to  do  is  to  show  himself  a  workman  that 
needeth  not  to  be  ashamed,  in  his  personal  and  indi- 
vidual activity.  Whatever  may  be  the  case  in  other 
countries,  in  Japan  he  will  command  no  respect,  even 
within  the  Christian  circle,  simply  because  he  is  a  mis- 
sionary. If  he  is  to  be  respected  he  must  show  him- 
self worthy  of  respect  as  a  man  of  real  spiritual  lead- 
ership. If  he  can  do  that,  he  will  not  fail  to  receive 
the  homage  which  character  and  ability  always  exact 
from  men. 

The  missionary,  however,  is  not  merely  an  indi- 
vidual, he  is  the  official  representative  of  the  American 
church.  He  is  not  only  her  first  and  best  gift  to  Japan, 
but  also  the  agent  through  whom  she  mediates  all  her 


THE  EVANGELISTIC  WORK  125 

other  gifts.  He  is  the  chief  channel  through  which  the 
spiritual  need  of  the  perishing  millions  is  made  known 
to  the  Occident  and  is  the  chief  channel  through  which 
the  reply  of  the  Occident  to  that  cry  of  need  flows  out 
to  the  Orient.  Therefore  the  missionary  is  and  ought 
always  to  remain  in  charge  of  the  work  which  the 
American  churches  do  to  evangelize  Japan.  He  ought 
to  be  the  responsible  and  authoritative  agent  for  the 
disbursement  of  American  funds  and  for  the  manage- 
ment of  the  work  done  by  means  of  them. 

This  is  not  to  say  that  it  may  not  sometimes  be  wise 
and  right  for  American  Christians  to  give  a  grant  in 
aid  for  this  or  that  purpose  to  the  Japanese  church  di- 
rectly. In  exceptional  circumstances  that  may  be  the 
best  thing  to  do,  but  this  does  not  destroy  the  validity 
of  the  rule  that  the  American  church,  engaged  in  evan- 
gelizing the  unreached  districts  and  classes  of  Japan, 
ought  to  place  the  funds  she  has  for  that  purpose  in 
the  hands  of  men  known  to  her  churches,  pledged  to 
her  principles,  selected  by  her  officers,  and  subject  to 
her  jurisdiction.  That  is  business,  that  is  common 
sense.  That  conserves  the  independence  of  the  Japa- 
nese church  no  less  than  the  independent  right  and 
duty  of  the  American  churches  in  their  missionary 
work.  It  is  also  the  only  way  in  which,  in  the  long 
run,  the  interest  and  support  of  the  congregations  in 
this  country  can  be  retained.  Not  long  ago,  in  Sioux 
County,  Iowa,  in  a  meeting  of  pastors,  elders,  and  dea- 
cons numbering  sixty  men,  I  was  asked  the  question : 
"We  are  informed  that  now  our  missionaries  are  being 
set  aside,  as  inferior  to  the  Japanese  ministers.     Is 


126       MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

that  true?"  I  explained  that  missionaries  had  no  po- 
sition within  the  church,  but  that  the  missionary  work 
as  such  was  entirely  in  their  charge,  and  the  inquirer 
was  satisfied.  Would  he  have  been  satisfied  with  any 
other  answer?    I  think  not. 

What  use  does  the  missionary  make  of  the  funds 
placed  in  his  hands  by  the  home  church  ?  He  uses  them 
chiefly  to  associate  with  himself  a  number  of  Japanese 
workers,  and  together  with  them  to  plant  the  seed 
from  which  presently  self-supporting  local  churches 
are  to  spring.  It  is  now  a  well  established  principle  in 
missions  that  the  laborers  from  foreign  lands  can  nev- 
er hope  to  do  the  work  alone,  or  even  to  do  the  prin- 
cipal share  of  it.  They  speak  the  language  imperfect- 
ly, at  best;  their  manner  of  life  and  habits  of  thought 
are  strange  to  the  people;  they  do  not  understand  the 
national  prejudices  and  difficulties  as  natives  do;  they 
can  not  gain  access  to  the  homes  so  easily,  and  in  num- 
berless other  ways  they  are  distinctly  and  hopelessly 
inferior  to  those  "to  the  manner  born."  Moreover, 
the  expense  involved  in  the  maintenance  of  a  foreigner 
is  several  times  as  great  as  that  of  a  native,  so  that 
it  is  out  of  the  question  to  accomplish  the  evangeliza- 
tion of  any  country  of  considerable  size  by  means  of 
missionaries  only.  That  may  do  in  a  small  island  in 
the  Pacific,  but  not  elsewhere,  least  of  all  in  Japan.  I 
need  not  take  your  time  to  prove  what  no  one  disputes. 

Comparisons  between  the  efficiency  of  foreigners 
and  native  preachers,  however,  must  not  fail  to  recog- 
nize, what  is  often  forgotten,  that  the  most  talented 
Japanese  preachers  are  not  available  for  missionary 


THE  EVANGELISTIC  WORK  127 

service.  It  is  often  said  that  the  Japanese  ministers  as- 
sociated with  the  missionaries  are  men  of  inferior  abil- 
ity, and,  barring  notable  exceptions,  the  charge  is  true. 
Not  only  is  it  true,  but  a  little  reflection  will  show  that 
it  can  not  be  otherwise.  Suppose  the  case  of  ten  men 
graduating  from  a  theological  seminary  in  Japan. 
Most,  if  not  all  of  them  will  be  found  to  have  been 
sent  to  school  and  maintained  by  the  missionaries. 
They  go  back  to  the  provinces  and  labor  with  them  and 
under  their  direction.  Within  a  few  years  they  will  be 
found  to  have  separated  into  three  classes.  Some  will 
be  found  quite  unfit  for  the  work  and  will  have  been 
dismissed.  Others  will  have  distinguished  themselves 
by  the  possession  of  unusual  mental  and  spiritual  tal- 
ents. What  becomes  of  these?  They  will  have  been 
called  to  the  pastorates  of  self-supporting  churches,  or 
to  editorial  and  educational  work.  In  all  of  these  cases 
they  pass  from  the  circumference  to  the  center  of 
church  life.  They  become  the  leaders  on  the  floor  of 
Synod.  Their  services  are  demanded  by  the  church 
for  the  development  of  her  work  "ad  intra",  and  so 
they  are  not  available  for  the  "ad  extra"  work. 

The  mediocre  men,  excellent,  earnest,  and  compe- 
tent workers,  but  without  the  highest  talents,  will  be 
left  to  the  mission.  These  are  the  men  with  whom  the 
evangelistic  missionary  eats,  sleeps,  travels,  plans  and 
prays.  They  are  his  closest  associates ;  happy  and  suc- 
cessful is  the  missionary  who  can  also  win  them  to  be 
his  most  sincere  and  intimate  friends.  In  order  to  do 
this,  he  must  give  them  gladly  his  own  spiritual  fel- 
lowship, love,  sympathy  and  assistance.  He  must  stand 


128        MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

so  emphatically  for  personal  holiness,  spiritual  power 
and  triumphant  faith  that  it  will  be  an  inspiration  to 
the  Japanese  to  come  into  contact  with  him.  It  ought 
to  become  a  matter  of  experience  with  the  Japanese 
evangelist  that  he  seldom  comes  away  from  a  long  vis- 
it with  his  foreign  brother  (and  very  few  Japanese 
calls  are  short !)  without  having  some  text  become 
more  precious  to  him  or  seeing  some  truth  and  duty 
in  a  new  light.  A  missionary  in  Japan  will  do  well  to 
invite  the  evangelists  frequently  to  his  table,  to  take 
long  walks  with  them,  and  to  open  his  heart  to  them 
with  frankness  and  confidence.  All  this  must  be  per- 
meated with  genuine  spirituality.  There  is  no  more 
important  work  than  this  for  the  missionary,  and  noth- 
ing more  difficult  for  the  natural  man,  but  in  view  of 
the  abundant  riches  of  the  grace  of  Christ  and  the 
promise  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  no  department  in  which 
failure  is  more  akin  to  sin.  From  such  conferences 
the  Japanese  is  not  the  only  gainer.  The  missionary 
himself  will  be  refreshed  and  delighted  with  the  ideas 
that  come  to  him  from  the  inner  experiences  of  a  life 
so  different  from  his  own.  But  a  Japanese  is  naturally 
very  reserved.  He  will  not  unlock  his  thoughts  and 
grant  confidence  except  in  return  for  confidence.  The 
young  missionary  must  therefore  not  expect  too  much 
at  first.  Least  of  all  must  he  assume  the  attitude  of  a 
formal  teacher.  This  becomes  possible  to  some  men 
of  exceptional  power  and  tact  after  they  have  gained 
the  hearty  friendship  and  respect  of  their  brethren  in 
the  way  I  have  described,  but  not  even  then  to  all. 
This  spiritual  relation  between  the  missionary  and 


THE  EVANGELISTIC  WORK  129 

the  evangelist  ought  quite  to  overshadow  the  relation 
of  superintendence  in  which  the  former  stands  to  the 
latter.  Yet  there  is  such  a  relation.  The  missionaries 
in  their  assemblies  decide  who  is  to  be  employed  and 
who  is  to  be  rejected  or  discharged,  fix  salaries  and 
assign  places  of  labor.  The  individual  missionary  as 
he  goes  about  the  country  takes  note  of  the  efficiency 
of  the  evangelist,  and  his  recommendations  are  likely 
to  be  followed  by  his  mission.  In  a  sense,  then,  the 
evangelist  is  certainly  under  the  supervision  of  the 
missionary.  Call  it  what  we  will,  disguise  it  as  we 
may,  such  remains  the  fact.  This  superintendence 
should  be  always  exercised  on  the  part  of  the  mission- 
ary with  the  utmost  tact  and  consideration,  but  if  a 
Japanese  preacher  finds  it  intolerable  to  be  associated 
on  such  terms  with  the  representatives  of  the  Ameri- 
can churches,  he  should  not  be  willing  either  to  receive 
his  support  from  their  gifts.  Happily,  such  a  man  has 
now  increasing  opportunity  to  find  work  elsewhere. 

In  association  with  such  Japanese  preachers  as  are 
content  to  work  with  him,  the  missionary  plans  for  the 
accomplishment  of  the  task  that  is  assigned  him  by  his 
mission,  usually  with  the  sad  consciousness  that  the 
resources  at  his  disposal  are  not  even  distantly  ade- 
quate to  the  work,  but  inspired  at  the  same  time  by  the 
challenge  which  the  very  greatness  of  that  task  offers 
to  his  powers. 

The  methods  by  which  we  operate  are  for  the  most 
part  the  old  and  simple  ones  of  public  speech  and  pri- 
vate conversation  with  all  who  can  be  induced  to  hear. 
Usually  the  Japanese  ministers  take  up  their  residence 
9 


130       MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

in  the  principal  towns  of  the  district  and  maintain  reg- 
ular Sunday  services,  even  though  at  first,  there  is 
hardly  a  single  person  who  is  willing  to  attend  except 
the  members  of  their  own  families.  By  forming  the 
acquaintance  of  people  in  the  neighborhood  this  num- 
ber slowly  increases,  but  generally  it  takes  a  number 
of  years  before  as  many  as  fifteen  or  twenty  persons 
regularly  assemble.  The  preacher  does  not  confine 
himself  to  the  place  of  his  residence,  but  generally 
seeks  to  obtain  a  foothold  in  two  or  three  of  the  neigh- 
boring villages,  and  if  successful  holds  meetings  there 
once  or  twice  a  month. 

As  often  as  possible  the  missionary,  who  is  located 
in  the  chief  city,  visits  the  various  towns  where  the 
preachers  reside,  and  such  a  visit  is  commonly  made 
the  occasion  for  more  public  meetings,  at  the  hotel  or 
in  a  public  hall,  at  which  a  larger  crowd  than  usual 
gathers,  partly  from  mere  curiosity,  partly  from  genu- 
ine interest.  Tract  distribution,  Sunday  school  work, 
and  house  to  house  visitation  are  constant  features. 
After  the  public  meetings,  an  invitation  is  given  to  any 
who  desire  to  remain  and  get  acquainted  with  the  mis- 
sionary, and  it  is  no  uncommon  thing  to  have  these 
conversations  extend  far  into  the  night.  Magic  lan- 
tern meetings  are  also  a  successful  feature  of  the  work 
of  some  missionaries. 

Such  work  as  this,  with  Bible  classes  in  English 
and  in  Japanese  at  the  town  of  his  permanent  resi- 
dence, forms  the  greater  part  of  the  work  of  a  mission- 
ary, and  takes  up  most  of  his  time.  It  is  laborious  and 
obscure  work,  fit  only  for  men  who  do  not  shrink  from 


THE  EVANGELISTIC  WORK  131 

labor  and  who  dare  to  be  obscure,  looking  and  long- 
ing not  to  be  known  and  praised  of  men  but  to  be  ap- 
proved of  God. 

It  is,  in  one  sense,  not  a  highly  successful  work.  For 
many  years  the  results  have  been  but  meagre.  Yet  it  is 
the  only  way  in  which  a  beginning  can  be  made.  Of 
all  forms  of  Christian  work  it  is  the  only  one  that  is 
positively  indispensable,  the  one  that  precedes  and  un- 
derlies every  other  sort  of  activity.  There  are  forms 
of  Christian  work  that  are  very  much  more  in  the  pub- 
lic eye.  The  work  of  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  and  of  the  Sal- 
vation Army,  although  lying  at  opposite  extremes 
from  each  other  in  character  and  methods,  may  serve 
as  examples.  Many  people  look  upon  the  Y.  M.  C.  A. 
as  one  of  the  most  successful  forms  of  work.  It  is 
far  easier  to  raise  large  sums  of  money  for  it  than  for 
the  regular  evangelistic  work.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
Salvation  Army  is  to  many  persons  the  ideal  of  pure 
evangelism.  Yet  it  is  a  fact  that  neither  the  Y.  M.  C. 
A.  nor  the  Salvation  Army  ever  establish  themselves 
in  a  place  where  there  is  not  already  a  considerable 
Christian  community.  They  would  not  know  how  to 
begin  in  such  a  place.  It  is  impossible  for  them  to  do 
anything  before  the  obscure,  plodding  work  of  the  pio- 
neer evangelistic  missionary  and  his  associates  has  pre- 
pared the  way. 

So  difficult  is  this  work,  so  large  the  investment  of 
patience,  talent,  and  capital  required  to  make  a  begin- 
ning that  the  Board  of  Missions  of  the  Church  of 
Christ  in  Japan,  although  operating  in  its  own  country, 
and  therefore  in  the  most  favorable  position  to  under- 


132       MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

take  it,  has  very  rarely  ventured  to  open  work  in  a  new 
district.  Dr.  Imbrie,  in  his  little  book,  "The  Church 
of  Christ  in  Japan"  states  the  case  correctly:  "To  a 
considerable  extent  the  policy  of  the  Board  has  been 
to  select  congregations  of  more  or  less  promise  and 
bring  them  to  self-support.  In  this  work  it  has  cer- 
tain advantages  over  a  mission."  (Church  of  Christ 
in  Japan,  p.  1 1 1 ) .  That  is  an  intelligible  policy  and 
one  to  be  commended.  I  quote  it  here,  not  to  criticize 
it,  but  to  illustrate  the  point  that  even  the  Board  of 
Missions  of  the  Church  of  Christ  in  Japan  shrinks 
from  the  years  of  plodding  work  and  meagre  success 
which  nevertheless  are  the  indispensable  conditions  of 
planting  the  church  in  the  villages  and  towns  of  Japan. 
Obscure  and  difficult  as  the  work  is,  it  has  a  keen 
attraction  to  the  man  who  can  see  beyond  the  obscurity 
and  difficulty  of  it  the  largeness  of  the  problems  it 
presents  for  solution.  For  instance,  upon  my  return  to 
Japan  next  fall  I  shall  most  probably  be  assigned  to 
the  district  called  Oita  Ken,  which  is  a  territory  about 
as  large  as  three  counties  in  our  own  state,  with  a  pop- 
ulation of  nine  hundred  thousand.  The  Christian 
forces  will  probably  be  represented  by  one  other  mis- 
sionary, a  Methodist,  and  ten  or  twelve  Japanese 
preachers.  These  are  also  charged  with  the  care  of 
three  hundred  scattered  believers  of  three  denomina- 
tions. The  problem  before  me  will  be,  therefore,  in 
company  with  the  other  workers,  "How  can  we  reach 
the  people  of  this  district  in  the  most  rapid  and  effi- 
cient way  with  the  message  of  the  cross,  so  that  they 
shall  not  only  hear  it  but  love  it  and  shall  establish  the 


THE  EVANGELISTIC  WORK  133 

beginnings  of  the  Christian  church?"  Can  you  imag- 
ine a  problem  more  attractive?  Can  you  find  in  the 
United  States  a  field  like  this?  I  have  had  the  honor 
to  lay  before  our  Board  the  prospectus  of  a  new  meth- 
od to  reach  the  people  through  the  advertising  columns 
of  the  newspapers.  The  Board  has  approved  it  and  I 
hope  to  put  it  into  practice  upon  returning  to  Japan.  If 
successful,  it  will  help  materially  in  the  solution  of  our 
problem.  There  remain  yet  many  subsidiary  problems 
of  how  to  approach  the  people,  how  to  speak  in  the 
language  best  understood  by  them,  how  to  overcome 
local  prejudices,  and  how  to  reach  the  poorest  and 
most  ignorant  as  well  as  the  highest.  To  study  prob- 
lems like  these  is  worthy  of  the  greatest  powers;  to 
have  a  share  in  solving  them  is  the  best  reward. 

I  have  endeavored  to  give  you  a  glimpse  into  the 
conditions  of  present  day  evangelistic  work  in  Japan. 
I  have  not  hid  from  you,  my  brethren  the  anxieties, 
the  difficulties,  the  unappreciated  obscurity  and  toil  of 
a  missionary's  life,  and  I  have  done  it  purposely.  If 
you  are  men  to  be  daunted  by  things  like  these,  by  all 
means  stay  at  home.  For  myself,  I  would  rather  be  a 
missionary  in  the  loneliest  village  of  Japan  than  to  be 
in  the  most  prominent  pulpit  of  America,  for  with 
twenty  years  of  missionary  service  behind  me,  and 
facing,  please  God,  as  many  more,  I  am  glad  that  I 
can  say  with  the  Apostle  Paul ;  "Unto  me,  who  am  less 
than  the  least  of  all  saints,  is  this  grace  given  that  I 
should  preach  among  the  gentiles  the  unsearchable 
riches  of  Christ." 


CHAPTER  VI. 

The  Educational  Work,  Essential  to  the  Perma- 
nence OF  Results. 

The  knowledge  of  God  and  the  study  of  his  works 
ought  to  go  hand  in  hand.  Neither  can  be  well  under- 
stood without  the  other.  Originally,  in  the  time  of 
man's  innocency,  they  did  go  together,  but  they  were 
separated  by  the  fall,  for  the  children  of  Seth  pre- 
served the  knowledge  of  the  true  religion,  while  the 
family  of  Cain  distinguished  themselves  in  the  sciences. 
From  that  time  on  they  developed  along  separate  lines. 
In  Judah  was  God  known,  His  name  was  great  in 
Israel,  but  among  the  gentile  flourished  culture,  art, 
science,  and  philosophy. 

This  unnatural  separation  came  to  an  end  in  the  ful- 
ness of  time,  when  the  Christ  appeared.  He  broke 
down  the  middle  wall  of  partition  between  Jew  and 
Gentile,  and  thus  also  between  Religion  and  Science. 
Henceforth  Science  was  to  find  her  most  brilliant  de- 
velopment in  the  schools  of  the  church,  while  the 
weapons  she  forged  were  to  be  used  by  Religion  in 
the  conquest  of  the  world. 

Two  attempts  have  been  made  by  Satan  to  rebuild 
the  barrier  that  Christ  destroyed;  the  first  when  the 
church  returned  to  the  legalism  of  the  Old  Dispensa- 
tion in  the  Roman  Catholic  perversion  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  when  learning  was  well  nigh  buried  under  a 
mass  of  bigotry,  and  the  church  vainly  fancied  she 


THE  EDUCATIONAL  WORK  135 

could  have  Religion  without  Science.  This  ended  with 
the  Reformation.  We  are  now  Hving  in  the  midst  of 
the  second  attempt,  which  seeks  by  a  complete  secular- 
ization of  education  to  bring  about  a  return  to  the  old 
heathen  condition  of  Science  without  Religion.  Against 
all  such  attempts  it  is  the  privilege  of  the  church  to 
maintain  an  uncompromising  and  victorious  warfare. 

Nowhere  would  a  defense  of  Christian  education 
seem  more  superfluous  than  upon  this  platform.  This 
audience,  this  community,  this  nation,  are  its  fruit  and 
its  justification.  That  such  a  defense  should  still  oc- 
casionally be  necessary  upon  the  mission  field  is  be- 
cause some  ardent  workers  persist  in  comparing  its  im- 
mediate efficiency  with  that  of  evangelization,  not  un- 
derstanding that  their  spheres,  though  different,  are 
mutually  complimentary. 

Evangelization  has  to  do  with  the  present  generation, 
education  with  the  next.  Evangelization  gathers  men 
into  churches,  while  education  secures  the  permanence 
of  the  institutions  that  evangelization  calls  into  exist- 
ence. Education  forges  the  weapons  of  offense  and 
defense  that  evangelization  wields  against  heathenism 
and  scepticism.  It  teaches  men  to  decipher  the  truth 
contained  in  the  hieroglyphics  of  nature;  it  brings  to 
light  the  record  hid  under  the  scrawled  and  blotted 
palimpsest  of  history,  and  from  both  of  these  sources 
illustrates  and  confirms  the  message  of  revelation.  That 
message  itself,  given  at  sundry  times  and  in  divers 
manners,  can  not  be  fully  understood  unless  the  times 
and  manners  be  traced  by  reverent  scholarship.  In 
spite  of  all  opposition,  therefore.  Christian  education 


136       MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

has  won  and  firmly  holds  for  itself  a  place  among  the 
great  missionary  agencies  in  every  land. 

These  general  principles  are  of  universal  applica- 
tion. The  development  of  the  work  in  each  country, 
however,  is  subject  to  the  influences  arising  out  of  so- 
cial conditions.  For  example,  Christian  schools  of  pri- 
mary grade,  which  are  so  great  a  feature  of  mission 
work  in  India  and  China,  have  never  been  estabUshed, 
to  any  considerable  extent,  in  Japan.  There  are,  to 
be  sure,  numerous  kindergartens,  but  these  serve  rath- 
er as  a  method  of  approach  in  evangelistic  work  than 
as  a  part  of  a  Christian  educational  system. 

The  limits  of  time  and  accessible  information  obHge 
me  to  omit  all  discussion  of  theological  seminaries, 
which  follow  the  same  general  lines  as  such  institu- 
tions do  in  America ;  and  of  female  education,  which  is 
a  subject  by  itself.  Our  discussion  is  thus  narrowed 
down  to  educational  work  for  young  men,  and  we  pro- 
pose to  glance  briefly  at  the  Development,  Results,  and 
Prospects  of  this  work. 

In  Japan  the  place  of  Christian  education  has  been 
peculiarly  important,  for  it  has  served  the  purpose 
usually  accomplished  by  medical  work,  viz.,  to  act,  as 
an  entering  wedge,  for  the  purpose  of  attracting  the 
attention  of  the  public  and  removing  prejudice.  As 
early  as  the  year  1865,  only  six  years  after  the  arrival 
of  missionaries  in  the  country,  the  following  statement 
of  their  teaching  activity  and  of  its  usefulness  as  a 
missionary  agency  was  made  by  the  missionaries  in  an 
address  to  the  Christian  people  in  America  and  Eng- 
land. 


THE  EDUCATIONAL  WORK  137 

"The  first  decisive  symptom  of  the  abatement  of  suspicions 
on  the  part  of  the  government  was  the  sending  of  about  a 
dozen  young  men  of  rank  from  Yedo  (i.  e.  Tokyo)  to  Kana- 
gawa,  to  be  taught  English  by  one  of  the  missionaries.  More 
recently  the  governors  of  Nagasaki  and  this  place  (Yoko- 
hama) authorized  schools  to  be  opened  for  a  similar  purpose 
under  their  auspices,  and  the  Protestant  missionaries  were 
invited  to  take  charge  of  them.  One  missionary  at  Nagasaki 
has,  during  the  past  year,  devoted  three  or  four  hours  a  day 
to  the  school  there.  The  school  at  Yokohama  has  over  fifty 
members,  and  for  more  than  two  years  past  three  and  some- 
times four  of  the  missionaries  have  been  engaged  in  it, 
teaching  an  hour  or  two  each  day.  A  large  supply  of  Ameri- 
can school  books  has  been  imported  by  the  governor  for  this 
school,  and  the  teachers  have  in  no  wise  been  restricted  as 
to  the  matter  or  manner  of  their  teaching.  Through  the  use 
of  these  foreign  school  books  more  or  less  of  Christian  truth 
is  almost  daily  brought  into  contact  with  the  minds  of  the 
pupils,  and  has  been  freely  made  the  subject  of  explanation 
and  remark  in  classes.  The  effect  of  this  is  manifest  in  the 
unhesitating  manner  in  which  the  pupils  make  inquiries  and 
seek  information  on  religious  subjects,  and  in  the  frequent 
expression  given  to  religious  facts  and  doctrines  in  their 
school  exercises.  Four  years  ago,  when  copies  of  a  book 
entitled  'The  Christian  Reader'  were  bought  of  a  mission- 
ary by  some  young  men  who  were  desirous  to  learn  Eng- 
lish, they  at  once  erased  the  word  'Christian*  from  the  title 
page  and  cover,  for  fear  it  would  be  noticed  by  others  and 
bring  them  into  trouble.  Now  a  considerable  number  of 
those  who  have  been  under  instruction  have  purchased  Bibles 
for  their  own  use.  In  the  school  rooms  and  in  our  houses 
there  is  no  reluctance  to  speak,  and  many  do  speak,  from  day 
to  day,  of  God,  of  Christ,  and  of  Christianity.  The  name  of 
Jesus  is  no  longer  uttered  with  bated  breath."  (Minutes  of 
Osaka  Conference,  page  47). 

Being  a  strictly  contemporary  statement,  this  quota- 


138       MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

tion  shows  clearly  how  very  valuable  this  teaching  was 
as  a  missionary  agency,  even  though  carried  on  in  the 
schools  of  a  government  that  was  at  that  very  time 
sternly  threatening  with  death  any  one  who  ventured 
to  profess  the  Christian  religion.  That  Christianity 
should  have  been  discussed  with  impunity  in  the  insti- 
tutions of  such  a  government  is  comparable  to  the  sit- 
uation of  the  infant  Moses,  nourished  in  the  palace  of 
the  Pharaoh  who  had  decreed  the  destruction  of  the 
Hebrew  children. 

Th€  missionaries  were  not  in  a  position  to  estabHsh 
their  own  schools  until  the  second  decade  of  their 
work,  when  such  schools  were  founded  in  two  centers. 
The  first  was  the  Yokohama-Tokyo  district,  where  it 
was  undertaken  by  the  Presbyterian  and  Reformed 
missionaries,  among  whom  were  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Hep- 
burn, and  Dr.  S.  R.  Brown.  The  institution  thus 
founded  has  developed  into  the  Meiji  Gakuin.  The 
second  school  was  in  Kyoto,  where  the  Congregational 
missionaries  Drs.  Greene  and  Davis  made  a  beginning 
in  1873.  With  this  school  was  later  combined  the 
work  of  Mr.  Joseph  Neeshima,  a  great  name  in  the  his- 
tory of  Japanese  Christianity,  and  from  this  resulted 
the  Doshisha,  the  most  famous  of  the  Christian  schools 
of  Japan.  Other  schools  were  established  later,  as  the 
various  denominations  opened  work  in  Japan. 

Up  to  the  year  1890  this  educational  work  enjoyed 
uninterrupted  prosperity.  Mission  schools  sprang  up 
on  every  hand,  and  it  was  only  necessary  to  announce 
the  time  and  place  where  students  could  apply  for 
entrance,  to  secure  an  abundance  of  pupils.     The  op- 


THE  EDUCATIONAL  WORK  139 

portunity  to  learn  English  and  to  enjoy  personal  in- 
tercourse with  foreigners  was  the  tempting  prize  that 
brought  scores  of  young  men  to  the  missionaries  for 
instruction,  a  tendency  that  was  accentuated  by  the 
insufficiency  of  the  government  schools,  both  in  num- 
ber and  in  quality. 

During  the  decade  1890  to  1900,  the  mission  schools 
suffered  first  a  marked  decline,  and  then  a  considerable 
recovery.  The  decline  was  due  to  the  great  anti-for- 
eign and  anti-Christian  reaction,  already  several  times 
referred  to  in  these  lectures,  to  the  growing  improve- 
ment of  the  government  schools,  and  to  the  difference 
in  policy  that  developed  between  them  and  the  mis- 
sion schools.  The  managers  of  mission  schools  were 
aiming  to  produce  thinkers  and  students,  and  with  that 
object  in  view  were  laying  great  emphasis  on  the  study 
of  the  English  language,  so  that  a  graduate  from  their 
courses  might  be  able  to  read  the  literature  of  the 
world  with  interest  and  understanding.  Necessarily, 
many  departments  of  knowledge  were  slighted  or 
omitted  in  the  course  itself.  The  government  schools, 
on  the  contrary,  having  a  practical  aim,  judged  it  bet- 
ter to  reach  the  student  a  little  of  almost  every  branch. 
It  is  the  old  question  whether  one  should  teach  '*mul- 
tum"  or  "multa,"  a  problem  not  by  any  means  set- 
tled in  our  own  educational  circles. 

Whatever  may  be  the  intrinsic  merits  of  the  two 
educational  ideals,  however,  it  gradually  became  clear 
that  the  students  in  government  schools  had  over- 
whelmingly the  advantage  from  a  practical  standpoint. 
They  were  exempt  from  military  conscription,  which 


140       MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

took  away  many  mission  school  students  in  the  midst 
of  their  studies.  They  were  more  readily  employed  in 
the  civil  service,  and  if  they  wished  to  continue  their 
studies  after  graduation,  they  not  only  did  so  in 
schools  whose  curricula  were  correlated  to  their  own, 
but  into  which  no  one  was  admitted  who  did  not  hold 
a  certificate  of  graduation  from  a  government  school. 
In  theory,  to  be  sure,  graduates  of  lower  government 
schools  were  entitled  to  enter  the  higher  institutions 
without  examination,  and  also  any  one  else  who  was 
competent  to  enter  could  do  so  upon  passing  the  neces- 
sary tests.  It  soon  came  to  pass,  however,  that  the 
number  of  applicants  bringing  certificates  of  gradua- 
tion from  lower  public  schools  exceeded  the  possible 
accommodation  of  the  higher  colleges,  so  that  even 
those  theoretically  entitled  to  enter  without  examina- 
tion could  not  do  so,  but  had  to  submit  to  competitive 
tests,  by  which  the  best  of  them  were  chosen.  Natur- 
ally, when  even  the  graduates  of  government  schools 
were  not  all  able  to  find  accommodations,  there  was  no 
chance  for  others.  Under  these  circumstances,  mis- 
sion schools  found  themselves  obliged  to  conform  their 
curricula  to  that  of  the  government,  and  to  obtain  li- 
censes as  part  of  the  public  school  system.  Upon  do- 
ing so  they  obtained  the  official  name  and  standing  of 
"Chu  Gakko,"  or  Middle  Schools,  with  all  the  attend- 
ant rights  and  privileges.  This  they  could  do  without 
in  any  way  abridging  their  religious  instruction  or  de- 
nying their  Christian  character. 

The  results  of  this  change  were  at  once  seen  in  re- 
turning prosperity,  and  the  Christian  schools  were  con- 


THE  EDUCATIONAL  WORK  141 

gratulating  themselves  upon  their  improved  prospects 
when  a  serious  difficulty  appeared  in  the  shape  of  an 
Instruction,  issued  by  the  Minister  of  Education, 
August  3d,  1899,  which  reads  as  follows : 

It  being  essential  from  the  standpoint  of  educational  admin- 
istration that  general  education  should  be  independent  of  re- 
ligion, religious  instruction  must  not  be  given,  or  religious 
ceremonies  performed,  at  government  schools,  public  schools, 
or  schools  whose  curricula  are  regulated  by  provisions  of  law, 
even  outside  the  regular  course  of  instruction. 

Missions  schools  that  had  accepted  the  name  and 
standing  of  Middle  Schools  were  included  in  the  scope 
of  this  order.  They  were  not  ''government"  or  ''pub- 
lic" schools,  but  they  were  "schools  whose  curricula 
are  regulated  by  provisions  of  law."  Indeed,  there  is 
good  reason  to  think  that  they  were  the  institutions 
against  which  the  Instruction  was  especially  aimed, 
inasmuch  as  the  practices  forbidden  in  it  had  never 
been  carried  on  in  the  other  schools. 

With  two  exceptions  all  the  mission  schools  that 
held  licenses  from  the  government  immediately  sur- 
rendered the  same.  Then  began  a  long  series  of  nego- 
tiations with  the  Department  of  Education,  which 
finally  resulted  in  a  curious  solution  of  the  difficulty. 
The  Instruction  was  not  modified,  but  new  regulations 
were  issued  by  which  the  government  recognized  not 
only  the  kinds  of  schools  enumerated  in  the  Instruc- 
tion, but  also  "schools  equal  or  superior  to  Middle 
Schools,"  and  granted  to  such  institutions  almost  all 
the  privileges  of  the  Middle  Schools ;  only,  they  were 


142       MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

not  allowed  to  call  themselves  by  that  name.  Since 
they  were  not  under  the  Instruction,  they  retained  per- 
fect religious  freedom.  At  the  present  time  there  are 
twelve  mission  schools  in  Japan,  of  which  three  are 
Middle  Schools,  and,  therefore,  bound  by  the  Instruc- 
tion. The  others  have  nearly,  if  not  quite,  all  obtained 
recognition  as  "schools  equal  or  superior  to  Middle 
Schools." 

Most  of  these  institutions  have  Japanese  principals. 
I  think  that  the  only  exceptions  are  the  Tohoku  Ga- 
kuin,  at  Sendai,  a  school  of  the  German  Reformed 
Church,  and  Steele  Academy,  at  Nagasaki,  of  the  Re- 
formed Church  in  America.  Their  affairs  are  some- 
times directly  administered  by  the  missions,  but  more 
commonly  by  a  Board  of  Directors,  composed  partly  or 
wholly  of  Japanese.  This  raises  an  interesting  ques- 
tion. In  discussing  the  evangeHstic  work  I  insisted 
that  work  done  by  means  of  funds  collected  in  Amer- 
ica should  be  under  the  control  of  the  missionaries. 
Does  this  apply  also  to  educational  work?  My  reply 
is.  No,  not  altogether.  Let  us  apply  again  our  funda- 
mental distinction  between  the  work  of  the  church 
"ad  extra"  and  "ad  intra."  To  which  department  does 
educational  work  belong?  Manifestly,  to  the  work 
"ad  intra,"  for  even  in  an  ideal  condition  of  the 
church,  with  all  heathenism  and  scepticism  overcome, 
there  would  still  be  need  of  Christian  instruction.  The 
educational  work  is,  therefore,  a  permanent  feature  of 
the  church's  life,  the  evangelistic  work  among  the  hea- 
then is  temporary.  The  work  we  do  in  the  field  of 
Christian  education  must  presently  be  done  by  the 


THE  EDUCATIONAL  WORK  143 

church  for  herself,  and  will  never  be  laid  aside.  Our 
evangelistic  task,  on  the  contrary,  must  some  day  be 
finished,  and  will  then  cease.  Hence  there  is  some- 
thing to  be  "turned  over"  to  the  native  church  in  the 
educational  department,  but  nothing  in  the  evange- 
listic. The  native  church  must  continue  our  work  in 
the  one  department,  but  not  in  the  other.  It  is  true 
that  the  evangelistic  work  produces  permanent  insti- 
tutions as  well  as  the  educational,  but  the  permanent 
church  life  which  results  from  our  evangelism  among 
the  heathen  does  a  work  differing  in  kind  from  that 
which  we  do,  while  the  educational  work  remains  the 
same,  whoever  does  it.  The  local  churches  resulting 
from  evangelization  become  self-supporting,  and  hence 
no  transfer  of  mission  funds  needs  to  accompany  their 
entrance  as  full  churches  into  the  denominational  fam- 
ily. So  to  speak,  they  need  no  dower.  Educational  in- 
stitutions, on  the  other  hand,  are  never  self-support- 
ing, and  hence,  if  transferred  to  the  Japanese  church, 
it  would  be  appropriate  that  a  certain  amount  of  sup- 
port, either  in  the  form  of  endowments  or  of  grants  in 
aid  should  accompany  them. 

If  we  do  thus  look  forward  to  eventually  transfer- 
ring our  educational  institutions  to  the  Japanese,  it  is 
natural  and  proper  that  from  time  to  time,  as  circum- 
stances seem  to  indicate.  Boards  of  Directors  should 
be  organized,  consisting  of  both  Japanese  and  foreign- 
ers, with  the  expectation  that  finally  the  Japanese  will 
be  in  complete  control.  Thus  the  very  method  which 
we  oppose  in  evangelistic  work  is  seen  to  be  natural 
and  appropriate  in  educational  work,  although  here 


144       MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

also  any  demand  of  the  Church  of  Christ  in  Japan, 
through  its  General  Synod,  to  share  in  such  control  as 
a  matter  of  inherent  right  would  be  stoutly  resisted. 

The  Results  of  Christian  Education. 

Let  us  now  ask  what  we  have  to  show  for  the  work 
of  fifty  years  in  this  department.  In  other  words, 
what  are  the  results  of  Christian  education  in  Japan, 
within  the  limits  laid  down  in  this  discussion  ? 

We  propose  to  take  up  this  subject  under  the  three 
heads  of  statistics,  general  influence  upon  the  progress 
of  society,  and  specifically  Christian  influence. 

A  careful  calculation  makes  it  probable  that  from 
twenty  to  twenty-five  thousand  young  men  have  re- 
ceived more  or  less  instruction  in  the  Christian  schools 
of  Japan.  Of  this  number  approximately  three  thou- 
sand are  graduates,  either  of  the  Middle  School  course 
or  of  a  higher  course,  or  of  both.  The  percentage  of 
these  graduates  engaged  in  the  various  callings,  so  far 
as  could  be  ascertained  in  the  summer  of  the  year 
1909,  was  as  follows : 

Per  cent. 

In  the  Ministry  or  some  other  Christian  Work.  ...  3 

Teachers  12 

Civil  Service    5 

Business  Men,  Farmers,  etc 28 

Military  Service I 

Miscellaneous  Callings  . 2 

Still  at  School  in  Higher  Courses 35 

Deceased 7 

Unknown 7 


THE  EDUCATIONAL  WORK  145 

These  figures  refer  only  to  occupations  and  condi- 
tions at  the  time  of  investigation.  Especially  must  this 
be  remembered  in  regard  to  those  in  Christian  work, 
for  the  number  of  those  who  have  taken  a  theological 
course  and  for  one  reason  or  another  are  not  now  in 
the  ministry  is  comparatively  large. 

Considered  merely  from  a  statistical  standpoint, 
these  figures  are  disappointing,  both  in  the  total  num- 
ber of  graduates  sent  out  and  in  the  proportion  giving 
themselves  to  religious  work.  We  must  guard  our- 
selves, however,  here,  as  elsewhere,  against  an  over-es- 
timate of  mere  statistics.  A  more  important  question 
is  what  part  the  Christian  schools,  through  their  stu- 
dents and  graduates,  have  had  in  the  remarkable  prog- 
ress of  the  Japanese  people. 

It  is  a  striking  fact  that  there  are  certain  professions 
in  which  almost  no  graduates  of  Christian  schools  are 
found,  and  therefore  certain  departments  of  life  upon 
which  they  can  scarcely  be  said  to  have  had  any  influ- 
ence. These  are  the  military,  medical,  and  legal  pro- 
fessions. This  is  all  the  more  noticeable  as  the  latter 
two  are  precisely  the  professions  in  which,  next  to  the 
ministry,  the  greatest  numbers  of  graduates  of  Chris- 
tian schools  are  found  in  America.  The  chief  reason 
for  this  is  that  access  to  the  medical  and  law  schools 
was  for  so  long  a  time  impossible  to  our  graduates,  by 
reason  of  conditions  already  described. 

A  considerable  number  of  graduates  are  found  in 
the  callings  classed  in  Japanese  as  "jitsugyo,"  which 
term  includes  farming,  and  the  work  of  an  artisan,  as 
well  as  manufacturing  and  commerce.     Nearly  seven 

10 


146       MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

hundred  of  the  graduates  are  in  this  class,  most  of 
them  clerks  and  other  employees  in  banks  and  com- 
mercial companies.  So  far  as  known,  not  one  of  them 
has  accumulated  a  great  fortune  or  holds  a  command 
ing  position  in  the  business  world,  but  on  the  whole 
they  are  efficiently  and  faithfully  contributing  their 
share  to  the  progress  of  society.  Banking  is  the  busi- 
ness most  favored  by  them,  and  not  a  few  are  mana- 
gers of  banks,  presidents  of  commercial  companies,  or 
in  other  posts  of  influence. 

It  is,  no  doubt,  from  one  point  of  view,  disappoint- 
ing that  so  many  of  our  graduates  choose  secular  call- 
ings. An  earnest  missionary  would  like  to  see  large 
numbers  press  into  the  ministry.  And  yet,  it  will  not 
do  tc  take  a  narrow  view  of  such  matters.  The  earth 
is  the  Lord's  and  the  fullness  thereof.  Uncjuescion- 
ably  God  calls  men  to  the  counting  house  as  well  as 
to  the  pulpit.  No  country  ever  needed  more  than 
Japan  to  have  its  resources  developed  and  its  in- 
dustries reorganized.  Such  development  and  reorgan- 
ization are  at  the  root  of  all  progress,  and  a  Christian 
school  has  the  same  right  as  any  other  school  to  take 
satisfaction  in  the  fact  that  its  boys  are  doing  their 
share  in  this  great  and  vitally  important  work. 

The  number  of  those  who  have  gone  into  official  and 
political  life  is  smaller,  being  117,  but  the  proportion 
who  have  risen  to  eminence  in  this  field  is  greater,  and 
their  influence  upon  the  country  has  been  more  direct. 
Most  of  them  hold  positions  of  greater  or  less  impor- 
tance in  city  and  provincial  offices,  in  the  postal  and 
customs  services,  or  in    similar  lines  of    work,  but 


THE  EDUCATIONAL  WORK  147 

among  them  are  found  also  members  of  the  upper  and 
lower  houses  of  Parliament,  a  mayor  of  Yoko- 
hama, the  governor  of  Gifu  Ken,  the  postmaster  of 
Nagasaki,  and  holders  of  numerous  offices  in  the  diplo- 
matic service,  from  that  of  Minister  downwards. 

It  is,  however,  in  the  world  of  ideas  rather  than  in 
business  or  official  life  that  the  graduates  and  former 
pupils  of  mission  schools  have  especially  distinguished 
themselves.  Even  when  such  graduates  are  not  Chris- 
tians, it  is  easy  to  see  that  this  impulse  to  consider 
ideas  as  more  important  than  dollars  is  the  legitimate 
fruit  of  Christian  education.  Nor  is  this  by  any  means 
an  inferior  contribution  to  social  and  national  progress. 
Fundamentally,  the  difference  between  Old  Japan  and 
New  Japan  is  a  difference  in  the  prevailing  ideas.  The 
natural  resources  are  the  same,  the  character  of  the 
people,  also,  cannot  have  undergone  a  magical  change. 
The  energy,  docility,  and  loyalty  which  so  largely  ac- 
count for  their  recent  progress  were  all  there  before. 
Japan  under  the  old  regime  was  comparable  to  one  of 
those  valleys  in  the  Rocky  Mountains,  where  condi- 
tions of  soil,  temperature  and  sunshine  are  well  nigh 
perfect,  but  which  are  comparatively  barren  for  lack 
of  water.  Let  an  aqueduct  be  built,  and  the  richest 
crops  reward  the  labor  of  the  husbandman.  As  the 
water  flowing  through  the  aqueduct  in  such  a  valley 
transforms  a  scene  of  barrenness  and  desolation  into 
one  of  fertility  and  beauty,  so  the  new  ideas  which 
were  introduced  into  Japan  during  the  first  part  of  the 
last  half  century,  ideas  of  liberty,  equality  and  popular 
rights,  ideas  of  the  value  of  the  individual,  of  the  dig- 


148       MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

nity  of  woman,  of  the  purity  of  the  family  life,  etc., 
have  transformed  that  empire  from  the  comparative 
barrenness  of  the  Tokugawa  era  into  the  wonder  of 
the  world. 

If  the  new  ideas  thus  introduced  may  fitly  be  com- 
pared to  the  life-giving  water,  what  is  the  aqueduct? 
It  is  that  which  contains  and  conveys  the  ideas,  in 
other  words,  the  foreign  language,  in  this  case,  the  En- 
glish language.  It  follows  from  this  that  no  one  is  a 
greater  benefactor  to  society  than  he  who  builds  this 
intellectual  aqueduct.  Viewed  from  this  standpoint, 
the  mission  schools  take  their  places  among  the  most 
beneficent  agencies  that  have  contributed  to  the  crea- 
tion of  new  Japan.  From  the  educational  work  done 
in  the  government  schools  by  Dr.  Verbeck,  Dr.  Brown 
and  others,  down  to  the  present  time,  the  teaching  of 
English  by  the  missionaries,  both  in  and  out  of  the 
regular  school  organizations,  has  brought  in  a  flood  of 
new  ideas,  so  that  the  sign  'Importers  of  New  Ideas," 
might  appropriately  be  hung  over  the  gate  of  every 
mission  school.  At  present  there  is  hardly  a  Middle 
school  that  has  not  one  or  more  of  our  graduates 
among  its  pupils,  so  that  it  may  be  doubted  whether 
the  government  schools  could  maintain  this  most  im- 
portant part  of  their  curriculum  without  the  aid  given 
them  by  the  mission  schools.  There  is  not  a  mission 
school  but  has  sent  a  number  of  its  graduates  into  the 
teaching  profession,  and  they  are  found  in  the  higher 
colleges  and  even  among  the  professors  in  the  Imperial 
universities. 

The  importation  of  new  ideas  is  carried  on  also  by 


THE  EDUCATIONAL  WORK  149 

newspapers  and  magazines,  and  here  the  influence  of 
mission  school  graduates  is  very  prominent.  Indeed, 
they  may  be  said  to  have  started  magazine  Hterature 
in  Japan,  for  the  pioneers  in  this  Hne  were  Mr.  Toku- 
tomi,  with  his  "Kokumin  no  Tomo;"  Mr.  Uemura, 
with  the  ''Nihon  Hyoron,"  and  Messrs.  Shimasaki, 
Togawa  and  Hirata,  with  the  "Bungakkwai."  All 
these  received  their  education  in  mission  schools. 

Neither  is  this  interest  in  journalism  a  matter  that 
has  decreased  of  recent  years.  Down  to  the  present, 
many  of  the  graduates  of  Christian  schools  go  into 
journalism,  and  many  of  the  most  influential  periodi- 
cals employ  them.  The  following  is  a  hastily  con- 
structed and  imperfect  list  of  journals  having  gradu- 
ates of  Christian  schools  as  editors-in-chief  or  as  mem- 
bers of  their  staflfs.  The  Mainichi  Shimbun,  Kokumin 
Shimbun,  Hochi  Shimbun,  Osaka  Asahi  Shimbun,  Na- 
goya  Fuso  Shimbun,  Kagoshima  Nichi  Nichi  Shimbun, 
Chinzei  Nippo,  Tokyo  Asahi  Shimbun,  Yorozu  Choho, 
Kahoku  Shimpo,  Sendai  Nichi  Nichi  Shimbun,  Jitsug- 
yo  no  Nihon,  Eibun  Shinshi,  Boken  Sekai,  Bunko, 
Waseda  Daigaku  Shippan  Bu,  Chuo  Koron,  Taiyo, 
Jinsen  Chosen  Shimpo,  Moji  Shimpo. 

When  we  consider  what  graduates  of  Christian 
schools  have  done  in  the  field  of  authorship,  we  meet 
with  an  astonishing  record,  which  space  allows  us 
merely  to  touch  upon  by  pointing  to  Shimasaki  Toson, 
the  poet ;  Matsumura  Kaiseki,  the  lecturer  and  his- 
torian; the  late  Dr.  Onishi,  eminent  as  an  author  on 
topics  connected  with  education  and  psychology,  and 
Tokutomi  Kenjiro,  the  novelist.  These  men  and  others 


150       MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

like  them  have  led  the  way  in  creating  a  new  literature 
for  Japan,  a  literature  that  is  fast  familiarizing  the 
whole  nation  with  the  best  ideals  of  the  West,  and  the 
influence  of  which  upon  the  national  thought  and  char- 
acter is  simply  beyond  all  calculation. 

The  directly  Christian  influence  of  mission  schools 
is  of  three  kinds,  general  influence  upon  society  in 
removing  prejudice  and  scattering  information  in 
regard  to  our  religion ;  the  influence  exerted  upon  the 
individual  student,  in  moulding  his  character  and  lead- 
ing him  to  a  saving  faith;  and  the  influence  of  the 
graduates  upon  the  establishment  of  the  kingdom  of 
God  in  all  of  its  forms.  The  first  of  these  three  kinds 
of  influence  is  in  its  very  nature  incapable  of  clear 
demonstration  and  exact  measurement,  but  there  is  no 
question  that  it  exists  and  that  it  is  a  powerful  factor 
in  producing  a  more  favorable  public  opinion.  The 
very  fact  that  the  missionaries  establish  schools  pre- 
vents the  idea  that  the  Christian  religion  is  afraid  of 
knowledge,  or  is  fit  only  for  ignorant  people.  Students 
who  attend  these  schools,  even  for  a  brief  period  can- 
not entertain  the  unreasonable  prejudices  which  still 
are  so  prevalent  among  the  common  people.  Teach- 
ers who  give  instruction  in  them  for  a  time  and  later 
become  teachers  in  the  public  schools  frequently  have 
occasion  to  defend  missionaries  and  the  Christian  re- 
ligion from  the  unreasonable  suspicions  and  attacks  of 
their  colleagues  who  have  never  in  any  way  come  into 
contact  with  Christian  men  or  institutions,  and  they  do 
so,  even  when  not  themselves  gained  for  the  faith. 
Parents  and  relatives  of  the  students  may  not  in  large 


THE  EDUCATIONAL  WORK  151 

numbers  become  believers,  but  they  are  generally  to  be 
reckoned  among  the  favorably  disposed.  In  regard  to 
this  entire  subject  of  general  influence,  the  late  Dr.  M. 
N.  Wyckoff,  one  of  the  most  experienced  missionary 
teachers  in  Japan,  says : 

"1  have  no  means  of  estimating  the  amount  of  influence 
which  our  schools  exert  in  disseminating  Christian  truth,  but 
I  am  certain  that  it  is  large.  That  the  schools  have  been  a 
powerful  means  of  getting  a  hearing  for  the  gospel  admits  of 
no  doubt.  This  was  more  remarkable  in  the  early  days,  for 
then  the  schools  and  English  classes  were  almost  the  only  way 
of  getting  a  hearing,  but  now  also  our  schools  have  great 
influence  in  preparing  the  way  for  the  entrance  of  the  truth. 
I  cannot  prove  it,  but  I  believe  that  the  changed  and  friendly 
attitude  of  government  schools  towards  Christianity  is  due 
more  to  the  influence  of  Christian  teachers  who  have  been 
pupils  in  mission  schools  than  to  any  other  cause." 

As  to  conversions,  the  few  schools  which  have  ven- 
tured to  submit  statistics  point  to  a  very  good  record. 
The  Doshisha  claims  2,000  baptisms  among  6,000  stu- 
dents who  entered  the  institution.  The  Tohoku  Gakuin 
reports  240,  Momoyama  Chu  Gakko  104,  Kwansei  Ga- 
kuin 150  and  Chinzei  Gakuin  700.  These  are  neces- 
sarily estimates  rather  than  exact  returns. 

One  would  take  greater  satisfaction  in  these  figures 
were  there  not  such  widespread  and  apparently  such 
well-founded  criticism  of  many  of  these  converts  after 
they  leave  school.  Extensive  inquiry  among  pastors 
and  Christian  workers  has  brought  to  light,  in- 
deed, numerous  instances  where  such  graduates  are 
pillars  in  the  church,  an  inspiration  to  the  pastor  and 
an  example  to  the  believers ;  but  on  the  whole  the  pas- 


152       MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

tors  are  not  able  to  make  such  reports.  On  the  con- 
trary, they  complain  of  the  fact  that  many  graduates 
take  no  interest  in  the  church  or  its  work,  that  they  are 
very  worldly  in  their  manner  of  life,  that  not  a  few  are 
a  scandal  even  to  unbelievers,  and  that  some  seem  im- 
mune to  any  Christian  influence,  not  only  in  spite  of 
the  fact  that  they  have  been  educated  in  Christian  in- 
stitutions, but  even  on  account  of  it,  as  if  they  had 
once  for  all  had  enough  of  the  matter. 

However,  here,  as  elsewhere,  it  is  of  the  highest 
importance  to  distinguish  the  characteristic  and  signifi- 
cant phenomena  from  those  of  a  general  nature.  The 
causes  that  make  men  irreligious,  immoral  and  selfish 
are  obvious.  They  operate  within  as  well  as  without 
the  circle  of  those  touched  by  Christian  education. 
That  many  of  the  graduates  of  Christian  schools 
should  be  men  of  very  common  clay  is  neither  surpris- 
ing nor  especially  significant.  It  is  otherwise  when 
some  of  them,  young  men  who  entered  school  with  the 
views  and  ambitions  of  their  fellows,  leave  it  with  re- 
ligious principles  that  transform  their  lives.  Here  is 
a  phenomenon  that  requires  explanation  and  demands 
recognition,  be  the  cases  many  or  few.  It  is  not  a 
question  of  numbers,  but  of  values.  Not  the  likeness 
to  type  but  the  divergence  from  the  type  marks  an  ad- 
vance. The  diamond  digger  takes  no  account  of  the 
worthless  pebbles,  but  treasures  the  gems,  and  counts 
himself  fortunate  if  now  and  then  a  brilliant  rewards 
his  efforts.  > 

To  trace  adequately  the  influence  of  Christian  edu- 
cation upon  the  Christian  church  in  Japan  would  be 


THE  EDUCATIONAL  WORK  153 

to  write  a  history  of  that  church.  As  Dr.  J.  F.  De 
Forest  writes:  "It  is  safe  to  say  that  there  never 
would  have  been  any  considerable  Christian  move- 
ment in  Japan  but  for  the  large  Christian  schools." 
The  first  organization  effected  was  composed  almost 
exclusively  of  students  receiving  instruction  from  the 
missionaries.  In  the  history  of  the  Congregational,  or 
Kumiai,  churches  in  Japan,  a  company  of  students 
known  as  "The  Kumamoto  Band,"  has  a  unique  place. 
Hardly  had  the  students  of  the  mission  schools  in  the 
early  years  completed  the  few  years  of  preparation 
when  they  stood  forth  as  the  leaders  of  the  Christian 
church,  and  to-day  one  cannot  mention  the  names  of 
the  men  who  are  most  honored  and  influential  in  the 
great  denominations  without  calling  the  roll  of  gradu- 
ates of  mission  schools. 

Especially  were  the  first  fifteen  years  of  organized 
Christian  education,  from  1872  to  1887,  extraordinar- 
ily fruitful  in  men  who  combined  conspicuous  ability 
and  earnest  faith.  That  the  first  few  years  should 
have  produced  men  like  Messrs.  Uemura,  Ibuka,  Ta- 
mura,  Ebina,  Miyagawa,  Honda,  Motoda  and  numer- 
ous others,  is  from  every  point  of  view  remarkable. 
The  time  has  not  yet  come  for  fully  estimating  their 
services,  but  at  least  this  may  be  said,  that,  as  at  the 
time  of  the  Reformation,  God  gave  a  galaxy  of  great 
men  to  the  church,  so  He  enriched  the  early  church 
in  Japan  with  a  group  of  men  of  unusual  power. 

The  later  years  have  not  been  quite  so  fruitful.  As 
the  seven  years  of  plenty  were  followed  in  Egypt  by 
seven  years  of  famine,  so  a  period  of  about  fifteen 


154       MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

comparatively  lean  years  in  Christian  education  suc- 
ceeded that  wonderful  first  period.  Constantly,  how- 
ever, men  have  been  coming  forward,  and  especially 
among  the  y®unger  men  there  are  many  of  great  prom- 
ise. It  is  to  be  regretted  that  so  few  of  our  graduates 
have  entered  the  ministry,  so  that  of  the  ministers  and 
evangelists  now  at  work  only  ten  per  cent  have  en- 
joyed the  full  preparation  which  our  schools  offer,  but 
the  men  who  compose  this  ten  per  cent  are  found 
largely  in  the  influential  churches,  and  in  the  various 
forms  of  activity  which  represent  and  interpret  Chris- 
tianity to  the  world. 

The  Christian  press  is  one  of  these  agencies.  Next 
to  the  pulpit  nothing  is  more  indispensable  to  the 
Christian  church.  Investigation  shows  that  without 
the  graduates  of  Christian  schools  there  simply  could 
not  be  any  Christian  press.  All  the  editors-in-chief 
are  from  such  institutions,  being  almost  without  excep- 
tion graduates  from  both  lower  and  higher  courses. 
Most  of  the  assistant  editors  and  contributors,  also, 
received  their  education  at  the  same  schools.  The 
"Shin j in"  is  the  only  prominent  Christian  magazine 
that  has  a  large  majority  of  writers  from  other 
schools,  and  even  here  the  two  chief  men  are  from 
mission  schools. 

The  same  is  true  of  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  movement. 
This  organization  has  sought  and  found  a  number  of 
excellent  men  from  government  schools,  but  begin- 
ning with  Mr.  Niwa,  a  Doshisha  man,  who  has  been  so 
long  and  so  intimately  connected  with  building  up  that 
movement,  down  to  the  present  time,  a  large  propor- 


THE  EDUCATIONAL  WORK  155 

tion  of  the  workers  have  been  from  mission  schools. 
During  the  Russo-Japanese  war,  when  the  Y.  M.  C.  A. 
tent  work  attracted  the  favorable  comment  of  the 
whole  world,  it  was  found  that  out  of  twenty-two 
Japanese  secretaries,  at  least  fifteen  were  from  mis- 
sion schools. 

Perhaps  one  would  hardly  look  for  the  influence 
of  Christian  education  in  the  Salvation  Army,  but 
who  can  doubt  that  whatever  success  the  Army  has  en- 
joyed in  Japan  has,  under  God,  been  largely  due  to  the 
personality  and  enthusiasm  of  Mr.  Yamamuro,  the 
editor  of  the  "Toki  no  Koe?"  Mr.  Yamamuro  is 
from  the  Doshisha,  and  writes  that  several  of  the 
most  efficient  workers  now  in  the  army  have  come 
from  the  Christian  schools. 

How  is  it  with  hymnology  ?  One  of  the  most  strik- 
ing and  far-reaching  facts  in  recent  mission  history 
is  that  during  the  last  five  or  six  years  over  two 
hundred  thousand  copies  of  the  union  hymn  book  have 
been  sold.  The  Japanese  work  on  that  hymnal  was 
largely  the  work  of  two  men,  one  of  whom  was  from 
Aoyama,  while  the  other  was  from  the  Doshisha. 

Organized  only  a  year  or  two  ago,  one  of  the  most 
vigorous  branches  of  Christian  work  is  the  Sunday 
School  movement.  The  three  Japanese  leaders  most 
conspicuous  in  that  work  to-day  are  respectively  from 
the  Aoyama  Gakuin,  Meiji  Gakuin  and  Kwanzei  Ga- 
kuin. 

It  is  the  same  story  over  again  when  we  ask  who  are 
the  leading  spirits  in  the  great  temperance  movement, 
for  both  Mr.  Ando  Taro  and  Mr.  Nemo  to  Sho  were 


156       MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

students  under  missionary  influence,  the  former  before 
the  formal  school  organization  took  place,  studying 
under  Dr.  Brown,  and  the  latter  in  the  first  stages 
of  the  Meiji  Gakuin. 

To  sum  up  what  has  been  said,  the  results  of  Chris- 
tian education  are  disappointing  in  the  following  par- 
ticulars :  in  the  fewness  of  graduates,  considering  the 
number  and  equipment  of  the  schools  and  the  length 
of  time  they  have  been  at  work ;  in  the  failure  to  influ- 
ence to  a  deep  religious  conviction  such  a  large  portion 
of  the  students;  in  the  unsatisfactory  character  of  so 
many  who  profess  conversion,  and  in  the  fewness  of 
candidates  for  the  ministry. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  services  of  Christian  schools 
to  society  at  large  and  to  the  Christian  church  have 
been  abundant  and  valuable.  Their  graduates  have 
contributed  largely  to  the  material,  intellectual  and 
moral  development  of  the  nation,  as  business  men,  offi- 
cials, teachers  and  editors.  Their  influence  has  in- 
spired the  new  literature  of  Japan,  has  vitalized  its  civ- 
ilization with  spiritual  ideas,  and  has  been  prevailingly 
on  the  side  of  righteousness  and  purity  in  national, 
family  and  private  life.  Christian  education  has  given 
birth  to  the  Christian  church,  has  supplied  it  with 
leaders,  literature  and  hymnology  and  has  made  possi- 
ble well-nigh  every  form  of  its  manifold  activities.  As 
the  strata  of  rock  beneath  the  fertile  fields,  although 
themselves  invisible  and  forgotten,  yet  underlie  and 
sustain  the  soil,  so  Christian  education  underlies  and 
sustains  Christian  civilization  and  the  Christian 
church. 


THE  EDUCATIONAL  WORK  157 

Problems  of  Christian  Education. 

Although  the  existing  Christian  schools  are  thus 
seen  to  have  been  very  influential  in  the  past,  it  is  a 
serious  question  whether  they  are  in  a  position  to  be 
equally  influential  in  the  future.  The  schools  of  Acad- 
emy, or  Middle  School,  grade  need  not  give  us  much 
concern.  They  require,  to  be  sure,  considerable  im- 
provement in  equipment  and  teaching  force  to  hold 
their  own  in  competition  with  the  government  schools, 
but  this  will  no  doubt  be  furnished  by  the  various 
boards.  A  much  greater  problem  is  how  to  make 
Christian  education  a  potent  factor  in  the  advancing 
intellectual  life  of  the  nation  by  introducing  it  into 
the  sphere  of  college  and  university  training,  from 
which  it  is  now  practically  excluded. 

The  cause  of  this  phenomenon  is  a  striking  differ- 
ence that  exists  between  education  in  Japan  and  in 
America.  An  American  college  offers  the  student  no 
professional  training,  but  prepares  him  to  obtain  such 
training  later.  He  has,  therefore,  no  need  to  select  his 
profession  until  his  outlook  upon  life  has  been  broad- 
ened and  his  insight  into  its  meaning  has  been  deep- 
ened by  general  culture.  In  the  meantime.  Christian 
forces  are  brought  to  bear  upon  his  mind  and  heart 
which  not  infrequently  lead  to  his  conversion,  with  a 
resultant  consecration  to  a  very  different  course  of 
life  from  the  one  he  would  have  chosen  had  he  been 
obliged  to  cast  the  die  several  years  earlier.  Whatever 
his  choice,  he  may  enter  upon  his  professional  studies 
wherever  he  likes,  for  with  his  college  diploma  in  his 


158       MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

hands,  the  doors  of  every  technical  institute  in  the 
country  are  open  to  him. 

In  Japan,  on  the  contrary,  specialization  begins  very 
early,  so  early  that  the  choice  of  a  profession  is  prac- 
tically forced  upon  the  graduate  of  a  Middle  School, 
immature  and  uncultured  as  he  of  necessity  is.  To  be 
sure,  if  he  is  one  of  the  favored  few  who  gain  admit- 
tance to  one  of  the  government  colleges,  he  does  not 
actually  begin  his  professional  studies  until  three  years 
later,  in  the  university,  but  even  in  these  colleges  the 
division  into  classes  is  based  upon  the  course  to  be 
pursued  in  the  university,  and  the  curriculum  varies 
accordingly. 

Hence  there  is  really  no  place  in  the  education  of 
Japan  for  the  counterpart  of  the  American  college 
course,  where  the  humanities  are  supreme,  and  the 
question  of  bread  and  butter  is  temporarily  out  of 
sight.  We  need  not  stop  to  point  out  how  great  a  loss 
Japan  suffers  by  this  elimination  of  the  college  course, 
how  unfavorable  such  a  condition  is  to  the  cultivation 
of  the  spiritual  aspirations,  or  how  directly  it  tends  to 
the  predominance  in  her  social  order  of  a  narrow 
vision  and  a  materialistic  attitude.  We  desire  espe- 
cially to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  by  this  circum- 
stance Christian  education  is  excluded  from  the  very 
domain  where  she  most  longs  to  assert  herself,  a  do- 
main peculiarly  her  own  in  other  hands.  The  great 
sciences  which  interpret  human  life  and  destiny,  viz. : 
history,  logic,  literature,  sociology,  psychology,  philos- 
opy,  etc.,  are  too  advanced  to  be  taught  in  the  Mid- 
dle School.    They  belong  in  the  college  course.    To  be 


THE  EDUCATIONAL  WORK  159 

satisfied  with  Christian  secondary  education  is  to  give 
up  all  hope  of  substituting  for  the  rationalistic  view 
of  these  sciences  prevalent  in  Japan  one  more  in  har- 
mony with  the  principles  of  our  religion.  To  acqui- 
esce in  this  is  impossible.  Hence  the  irresistible  im- 
pulse to  establish  Christian  colleges  or  their  equivalent. 
So  much  is  clear,  and  in  obedience  to  this  impulse  a 
number  of  ''Higher  Departments,"  or  "Colleges,"  have 
been  established,  in  which  a  high-class  curriculum  of 
three  years  or  more  promises  an  intellectual  feast. 
But  alas !  if  the  truth  must  be  told,  they  are  for  the 
most  part  failures.  As  a  rule,  two  or  three  tens  of 
students,  either  candidates  for  the  ministry  or  other- 
wise supported  by  scholarships,  are  the  only  guests  at 
the  banquet.  What  is  the  reason?  Simply  that  the 
course  leads  nowhere  except  to  the  theological  sem- 
inaries. The  Imperial  Universities  are  the  only  insti- 
tutions in  the  country  that  demand  for  entrance  an 
education  of  this  grade,  and  they  are  practically  open 
only  to  graduates  of  the  government  colleges.  All 
other  professional  schools  are  organized  on  the  basis 
of  the  Middle  School  as  the  source  of  supply.  The 
three  years  spent  in  the  "college  department"  of  a  mis- 
sion school  would,  therefore,  be  of  no  advantage  to  a 
young  man  in  preparing  for  a  professional  career.  At 
best  they  would  appear  to  him  and  his  friends  as  lost 
time.  This  fact  fully  accounts  for  the  failure  of  such 
departments  to  attract  students.  The  conclusion  of  the 
whole  matter  and  the  lesson  of  two  decades  of  failure 
is  this :  A  college  course  that  does  not  open  the  way 
to  a  professional  career  cannot  succeed. 


i6o       MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

If  this  is  true,  it  is  clear  that  Christian  higher  ed- 
ucation must  remain  in  its  present  state,  as  a  prepara- 
tory department  to  the  divinity  school  only,  or  Chris- 
tion  professional  courses  of  higher  grade  must  in  some 
way  be  provided.  To  some  extent  this  has  already 
been  done  by  the  Aoyama  Gakuin,  the  Methodist 
school  in  Tokyo,  which  some  years  ago  obtained  a 
charter  by  virtue  of  which  graduates  from  its  collegi- 
ate department  were  entitled  without  further  exam- 
ination to  receive  certificates  as  licensed  teachers  of 
English  in  schools  of  middle  grade.  Since  that  time 
they  have  had  plenty  of  students.  More  recently  the 
Rikkyo  Dai  Gakko,  a  school  of  the  American  Episco- 
pal church,  has  introduced  a  commercial  course,  and 
hence  reports  more  than  fifty  men  in  the  collegiate  de- 
partment. We  are  thus  forced  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  Christian  educators  of  Japan  must  either  teach  the 
young  men  in  their  "Higher  Departments,"  or  "Col- 
leges," something  by  which  they  may  earn  a  living  or 
confine  themselves  to  work  of  academy  grade.  A 
purely  literary  college  course^  however  excellent,  can- 
not succeed. 

An  ideal  solution  of  the  difficulty  would  be  to  es- 
tablish one  great  central  Christian  university,  a  school 
turning  out  doctors,  lawyers,  civil  engineers  and  other 
experts,  but  requiring  the  applicant  to  have  already  a 
college  education.  If  this  were  done,  each  existing 
school  would  speedily  grow  into  a  genuine  college, 
and  act  as  a  feeder  to  such  a  university.  This  need  is 
keenly  felt  among  Christian  educators  in  Japan,  and 
the  matter  has  repeatedly  been  under  discussion.     It 


THE  EDUCATIONAL  WORK  i6i 

is  clear  that  such  an  institution  should  have  a  union 
character,  for  the  cost  would  be  immense,  and  there 
is  not  really  room  in  Japan,  at  present,  for  two  such 
schools.  It  is  also  clear  that  it  should  be  an  endowed 
institution,  for  the  difficulty  of  securing"  adequate  and 
reliable  support  from  the  treasuries  of  the  mission 
boards  would  be  insurmountable. 

However,  suppose  there  were  such  a  union  univers- 
ity adequately  endowed,  would  there  be  real  union 
enough  among  the  forces  involved  to  ensure  ultimate 
success  ?  I  am  afraid  not.  Much  is  said  in  these  days 
about  union.  In  gatherings  like  the  Edinburgh  Con- 
ference every  reference  to  it  is  applauded  to  the  echo, 
and,  to  be  sure,  many  of  the  old  barriers  are  being 
swept  away.  At  least,  we  have  learned  to  see  that 
some  questions  important  enough  to  divide  us  as  de- 
nominations need  not  prevent  our  joining  hands  in  cer- 
tain lines  of  work.  It  would  not  be  difficult  for  me 
to  co-operate  in  such  a  university  with  Methodists, 
Baptists,  Episcopalians,  Congregationalists  and  Luth- 
erans, and  I  think  that  most  missionaries  would  be 
able  to  do  so. 

However,  while  certain  lines  of  cleavage  in  the 
Christian  body  are  less  marked  than  formerly,  other 
lines  are  appearing,  and  these  new  lines  are  precisely 
such  as,  in  my  opinion,  make  united  higher  Christian 
education  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  for  they  are  ulti- 
mately based  upon  the  acceptance  or  rejection  of  the 
supernatural,  and,  therefore,  their  effect  must  be  seen 
in  every  interpretation  of  the  cosmos.  Inasmuch  as 
such  interpretation  is  the  very  heart  of  higher  educa- 
II 


i62        MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

tion,  two  parties  differing  on  this  point  could  never 
permanently  work  in  harmony  in  a  Christian  univers- 
ity. That  there  are  two  such  parties,  both  here  and  in 
Japan,  is  too  well  known  to  require  proof.  Bald,  a  pri- 
ori denial  of  the  supernatural  may  be  rare  among  pro- 
fessing Christians,  but  a  constant  minimizing  of  it,  a 
persistent  refusal  to  admit  it  as  a  legitimate  element 
in  our  view  of  the  world  and  as  an  acceptable  inter- 
pretation of  the  great  facts  of  the  Christian  history 
is  not  only  common,  but  is  at  the  bottom  of  almost 
everything  that  goes  by  the  name  of  New  Theology, 
advanced  thought,  "assured  results  of  Higher  Criti- 
cism," etc. 

To  my  mind  no  person  or  institution  has  any  right 
to  the  name  of  "Christian"  that  does  not  heartily  ac- 
cept the  Apostles'  Creed,  barring  only  the  obscure  and 
disputed  article,  "He  descended  into  hell."  I  should 
not  care  a  cent  for  a  Christian  university  in  Japan  un- 
less all  of  its  directors  and  every  full  permanent  pro- 
fessor were  required  to  declare  his  adherence  to  these 
articles,  and  to  teach  in  accordance  therewith.  This 
is  the  least  that  could  be  asked.  Yet  I  have  no  idea 
that  a  union  Christian  university  in  Japan  is  possible 
on  such  conditions.  The  articles  in  regard  to  the  Vir- 
gin Birth,  the  Resurrection  of  Christ  and  the  Resur- 
rection of  the  Body  would,  I  believe,  form  an  insur- 
mountable obstacle.  They  would  either  be  denied  out- 
right, or  would  be  interpreted  to  mean  something  dif- 
ferent from  the  plain  and  historic  sense.  Such  is  the 
power  of  the  miserable  credophobia  that  has  emascu- 
lated our  Christianity  that  even  many  who  heartily  ac- 


THE  EDUCATIONAL  WORK  163 

cept  the  Apostles'  Creed  themselves  would  refuse  to 
insist  upon  such  a  standard.  This  is  the  chief  diffi- 
culty. It  is  not  that  the  orthodox  party  is  outnum- 
bered. On  the  contrary,  genuine  faith  in  historic 
Christianity  is  the  rule  among  ministers  and  Chris- 
tians in  Japan  as  elsewhere,  not  the  exception.  If  they 
would  join  hands  and  insist  upon  some  formula  of 
concord,  they  could  accomplish  it,  but  for  the  present 
the  generous  enthusiasm  for  unity  has  dazzled  their 
eyes.  Apparently  our  churches  will  have  to  play  with 
the  fire  a  little  longer  before  they  are  sufficiently 
burned  to  dread  it. 

If  I  knew  of  some  way  to  make  a  Christian  uni- 
versity really  Christian  and  to  keep  it  so,  nothing 
would  enlist  my  ardent  and  enthusiastic  support  like 
the  proposal  to  establish  one.  As  it  is,  I  am  less  op- 
timistic over  the  prospects  of  this  branch  of  our  work 
than  of  any  other.  It  is  a  problem  that  is  vital  to  the 
future  of  the  church  in  Japan,  but  one  that  is  at  pres- 
ent, to  my  mind,  insoluble.  This  does  not  hinder  my 
looking  to  God  in  faith  that  He  has  a  solution  and  will 
show  it  to  us  in  His  own  way  and  at  His  own  time. 


CHAPTER  VII. 
What  God  Is  Doing  in  the  Far  East. 

Our  subject  is :  What  God  is  doing  in  the  Far  East. 
The  words,  The  Far  East,  must  be  understood  from 
the  standpoint  of  Europe  rather  than  from  that  of 
America.  The  East  in  general  is  all  that  portion  of 
the  world  lying  eastward  from  Europe.  In  common 
parlance  three  sections  of  it  are  distinguished,  viz. : 
the  Near  East,  which  includes  Asia  Minor,  Palestine, 
Egypt  and  Arabia ;  the  East,  simply,  without  any  qual- 
ifying adjective,  which  means  India,  Siam  and  Bur- 
mah;  and  the  Far  East,  including  China,  Korea  and 
Japan. 

The  union  of  these  three  countries,  China,  Japan 
and  Korea  is  more  than  a  geographical  accident.  They 
are  really  united  by  many  and  important  bonds  of  Ian-  j 
guage,  custom,  tradition  and  religion.  They  have  notj 
a  common  spoken  language,  but  the  literary  written 
language  is  the  same,  for  the  Chinese  script  is  read  by 
the  educated  men  of  Korea  and  Japan  as  well.  Over 
them  all  Confucius  threw  the  spell  of  his  great  system 
for  centuries,  so  that  they  studied  the  same  classic 
literature  and  held  the  same  ideas  of  law,  morality  and 
government.  Without  intercourse  with  the  rest  of  the 
world,  they  were  sufficient  to  themselves,  and  felt  no 
need  to  learn  more  than  the  ancient  sages  had  taught. 
The  civilization  of  China  was  already  well  established 
in  the  days  of  Moses,  while  in  Korea  there  are  records 


WHAT  GOD  IS  DOING  165 

of  a  king  who  was  contemporary  with  David.  When 
we  consider  the  population  that  inhabits  these  lands, 
we  find  that  it  comprises  not  less  than  five  hundred 
millions  of  men,  approximately  one-fourth  of  the  hu- 
man race. 

We  are  invited  to  consider  at  this  time  what  God  is 
doing  in  this  great  gection  of  the  world.  Our  subject 
includes  as  one  of  its  chief  elements  what  God  is  do- 
ing through  the  preaching  of  the  gospel,  but  it  is  not 
limited  to  that.  We  gladly  confess  our  faith  that  God 
has  other  tools  with  which  to  work,  and  that  his  doings 
include  the  entire  range  of  Divine  Providence,  work- 
ing through  Commerce,  Diplomacy,  Education  and 
War,  as  well  as  through  the  direct  missionary  work. 
The  earth  is  the  Lord's  and  the  fullness  thereof.  His- 
tory is  but  the  record  of  his  acts,  and  the  ambitions 
of  kings,  the  plans  of  statesmen  and  the  passions  of  the 
nations  are  overruled  by  Him  to  the  coming  of  that 
one  far  off  divine  event  to  which  the  whole  creation 
moves. 

Sixty  years  ago  there  were  only  five  ports  in  China 
where  Europeans  were  allowed  to  reside,  and  these 
had  been  opened  only  a  few  years  before  as  the  result 
of  the  first  opium  war.  The  entire  interior  of  China 
was  not  only  closed  to  the  missionary  work,  but  to  all 
travel  and  residence  by  foreigners.  It  was  practically 
an  unknown  land.  Nevertheless,  the  situation  in  China 
was  at  that  time  far  more  favorable  than  it  was  in 
Japan,  for  it  was  death  to  any  one  but  a  Hollander  to 
enter  that  land,  and  the  Dutch  were  able  to  bring  but 
one  ship  each  year.     They  were  permitted  to  reside 


i66        MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

only  at  Nagasaki,  where  the  greatest  pains  were  taken 
to  prevent  communication  between  them  and  the  rest 
of  the  country.  As  for  taking  advantage  of  their  pres- 
ence to  introduce  some  knowledge  of  Christianity,  that 
was  quite  out  of  the  question,  for  the  religion  of  Christ 
was  more  hated,  despised  and  dreaded  by  the  ruling 
powers  of  Japan  than  any  other  thing.  To  the  Dutch 
Envoy,  Jonkheer  Donker  Curtius,  the  Japanese  offi- 
cials said  that  they  would  be  willing  to  allow  foreign- 
ers all  trading  privileges  if  only  a  way  could  be  found 
to  keep  opium  and  Christianity  out  of  the  country. 

Public  notices  were  everywhere  to  be  seen  denounc- 
ing it  as  a  vile  religion  and  strictly  forbidding  the  peo- 
ple to  have  anything  whatever  to  do  with  it.  Not  con- 
tent with  that,  it  was  the  custom  of  the  government 
once  a  year  to  call  upon  the  people  to  stamp  and  spit 
upon  the  cross,  confident  that  in  this  way  any  hidden 
Christians  would  be  at  once  detected.  This  condition 
of  affairs  had  lasted  for  more  than  two  hundred  years, 
and  there  was,  judging  from  outward  appearances,  not 
the  least  reason  in  the  world  to  think  that  it  would 
soon  be  overthrown.  As  for  Korea,  it  was,  and  long 
remained,  the  Hermit  Nation,  having  a  limited  inter- 
course with  China  and  Japan,  but  none  at  all  with  the 
rest  of  the  world. 

In  the  year  1853  the  government  of  the  United 
States  sent  Commodore  Perry  with  a  squadron  of  war- 
ships to  insist  upon  a  treaty  with  Japan,  which  was 
accomplished  the  following  year,  and  opened  the  way 
to  the  settlement  of  Dr.  Verbeck  and  other  mission- 
aries in  the  country  in  the  year  1859.     I^  the  mean- 


WHAT  GOD  IS  DOING  167 

time  the  second  opium  war  had  opened  other  ports  in 
China  and  secured  the  privilege  of  traveling  in  the  in- 
terior. 

All  this  was  by  way  of  preparation,  but  was  not  in 
itself  of  any  great  importance.  Things  remained  very 
much  as  they  were  both  in  Japan  and  in  China  until 
the  latter  part  of  the  sixties.  The  Civil  War  had  been 
fought  and  finished  before  there  took  place  the  first  of 
that  wonderful  series  of  political  changes  in  the  Far 
East  which  have  transformed  it  to  what  we  see  today. 
This  is  called  the  Restoration  of  1868,  because  it  con- 
sisted of  the  overthrow  of  the  power  of  the  military 
chiefs,  the  Shoguns  and  the  restoration  of  the  Em- 
peror of  Japan  to  his  rightful  power  at  the  head  of  the 
state.  This  was  much  more  than  a  mere  change  of 
masters :  it  marked  the  downfall  of  the  ancient  system 
of  seclusion  and  the  opening  of  Japan  to  free  inter- 
course with  all  the  nations  of  the  world.  It  was  fol- 
lowed, in  1873,  by  the  removal  of  the  notices  against 
Christianity  and  the  granting  of  practical  religious 
freedom. 

The  progress  of  Japan  since  that  time  is  a  familiar 
story.  It  is  one  of  the  fairy  tales  of  history.  The 
foundation  was  laid  when,  the  very  year  after  the  Res- 
toration, regulations  relating  to  universities,  middle 
schools  and  elementary  schools  were  promulgated  by 
imperial  decree,  thus  committing  the  empire  to  the 
great  conception  of  public  education.  Two  years  later 
the  Code  of  Education  was  promulgated,  wherein  it 
was  declared  that  knowledge  was  to  be  sought 
throughout  the  world,  and  the  high  ideal  was  held  up 


i68        MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

of  a  nation  in  which  there  should  not  be  a  village  with 
an  ignorant  family  or  a  family  with  an  ignorant  mem- 
ber. The  development  of  New  Japan  is  but  the  nat- 
ural consequence  of  such  a  policy.  The  most  notable 
political  changes  which  this  development  included  were 
the  granting  of  the  Constitution,  in  1889,  the  adoption 
of  entirely  new  laws,  on  the  European  model,  ten 
years  later,  and  the  two  great  wars,  that  with  China 
in  1894  and  the  recent  struggle  with  Russia. 

China  yielded  much  more  slowly  to  the  impact  of 
the  new  forces  that  entered  the  Far  East.  Although 
opened  to  trade  and  residence  earlier  than  Japan,  there 
was  lacking  on  the  part  of  both  government  and  peo- 
ple that  cordial  recognition  of  the  superiority  of  West- 
ern knowledge  and  that  systematized  effort  to  appro- 
priate the  best  that  could  be  found  that  are  the  secrets 
of  the  rapid  advance  of  Japan.  Consequently  new 
ideas  and  improvements  had  to  win  their  way  one  by 
one,  not  as  a  result  of  government  encouragement,  but 
generally  in  the  teeth  of  government  opposition.  Rail- 
roads, telegraphs  and  postal  service  were,  however, 
slowly  introduced  during  the  eighties. 

In  spite  of  all  her  intercourse  with  the  outside 
world,  China  maintained  up  to  the  beginning  of  the 
last  decade  of  the  nineteenth  century,  her  traditional 
attitude  of  haughty  superiority  towards  the  rest  of 
the  world.  When  I  first  went  to  the  Far  East,  in  1891, 
and  for  several  years  thereafter,  China  was  spoken  of 
as  almost  hopeless,  as  unwilling  to  learn  and  incapable 
of  learning  anything.  The  first  great  event  that  made 
a  marked  change  was  the  war  with  Japan  in  which  her 


WHAT  GOD  IS  DOING  169 

ancient  claim  to  suzereignty  over  Korea  was  shattered, 
some  of  her  greatest  fortresses  and  one  of  her  fairest 
provinces  passed  into  the  hands  of  others,  her  navy 
was  annihilated  and  her  pitiable  military  weakness  ex- 
posed to  all  the  world.  Then  followed  a  period  dur- 
ing which  the  partition  of  China  was  openly  discussed, 
and  point  was  lent  to  the  discussion  by  the  presence 
of  Germany  in  the  province  of  Shantung,  by  the  claim 
of  Great  Britain  to  a  sphere  of  influence  in  the  valley 
of  the  Yangtse  Kiang,  and  by  the  steady  advance  of 
Russia  in  Manchuria. 

All  this  set  old  China  to  thinking,  a  process  in  which 
the  recently  established  newspapers  gave  her  no  little 
assistance.  The  conviction  that  something  was  the 
matter,  and  that  something  must  be  done  to  save  the 
state,  became  common  among  the  Chinese  people.  Out 
of  all  these  and  many  more  similar  causes  came  the 
Reform  movement  of  1898,  a  critical  year  in  the  his- 
tory of  China.  Early  in  January  of  that  year  men 
were  startled  in  Peking  by  the  report  that  the  Em- 
peror had  sent  to  the  American  Bible  and  Tract  So- 
ciety for  a  copy  of  every  book  and  tract  that  the  depot 
could  supply  for  his  own  reading.  He  did  read  them, 
too,  with  the  result  that  he  placed  himself  at  the  head 
of  the  reform  party,  and  undertook  to  bring  into  op- 
eration in  a  short  time  the  most  sweeping  changes.  Six 
months  later  he  began  to  issue  a  series  of  splendid 
edicts,  about  forty  in  number,  which,  if  they  had  been 
carried  out,  would  have  revolutionized  the  life  of 
China.  He  was  not,  however,  strong  enough  to  carry 
them  out.     He  came  into  conflict  with  the  Empress 


170        MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

Dowager  and  her  party,  was  practically  thrown  into 
prison,  and  his  friends  were  scattered  or  put  to  death. 
Then  came  the  Boxer  war,  a  bitter  struggle  of  the  re- 
actionary elements  to  cast  off  the  growing  influences 
that  made  for  reform.  When  the  foreign  armies  were 
triumphantly  in  possession  of  the  capital  and  the  Em- 
press herself  was  a  fugitive,  she  had  at  last  learned  her 
lesson.  Although  she  came  back  to  power,  she  was  too 
wise  any  longer  to  oppose  all  reforms.  New  edicts 
were  issued,  some  of  them  confirming  the  laws  of  the 
emperor.  Among  the  most  important  of  these  is  the 
abolition  of  the  ancient  system  of  examinations  and 
the  adoption  of  modern  learning  as  the  standard  by 
which  the  fitness  of  candidates  for  office  is  to  be  meas- 
ured. To  make  this  good,  a  system  of  public  schools 
upon  a  modern  plan  had  to  be  established,  and  thus 
China  also  has  entered  upon  the  path  which,  in  the 
course  of  thirty  or  forty  years,  will  accomplish  in  her 
the  same  kind  of  thing  that  we  have  seen  in  Japan, 
only  upon  a  far  grander  scale. 

Even  now,  a  Chinese  parliament,  or  the  nucleus  of 
one  is  sitting  in  Peking,  and  the  chief  topic  of  dis- 
cussion has  been  the  need  of  hastening  the  time  when 
the  Constitution,  already  promised,  is  to  be  granted  to 
the  people. 

In  the  meantime,  what  was  happening  in  Korea? 
That  unhappy  country  did  the  same  on  a  small  scale  as 
China  did  on  a  large  one,  viz. :  resisted  all  impulses  to 
change.  If  history  could  have  waited  until  Korea  got 
ready  to  move,  all  might  have  been  well.  But  the 
hermit  had  come  out  of  his  seclusion  too  late.    Japan, 


WHAT  GOD  IS  DOING  171 

Russia  and  China  were  converging  upon  each  other  at 
that  very  point,  and  in  the  collision  the  little  king- 
dom was  crushed.  It  has  disappeared  from  the  map 
except  as  a  province  of  Japan. 

It  is  impossible  to  describe  fully  the  blessings  God 
has  bestowed  upon  the  people  of  the  Far  East  in  these 
political  changes.  They  mean  the  substitution  of  an 
entirely  new  civilization  for  the  one  they  had  had  for 
centuries.  This  difference  of  civilization  means  again 
that  knowledge  takes  the  place  of  ignorance  and  lib- 
erty the  place  of  oppression.  A  difference  in  the  civili- 
zation involves,  at  the  root  of  the  matter,  a  difference 
in  the  prevalent  ideas.  The  difference  between  old 
Japan  and  New  Japan,  between  the  China  that  now  is 
and  the  China  that  is  soon  to  be,  is  at  bottom  due  to  a 
host  of  new  ideas  that  have  come  in  and  are  coming 
in  all  the  time;  ideas  of  liberty,  equality  and  popular 
rights ;  ideas  of  the  value  of  the  individual,  of  the  dig- 
nity of  woman,  of  the  purity  of  the  family  Hfe.  Let 
me  give  you  one  or  two  instances  of  the  operation  of 
these  new  ideas. 

Only  forty  years  ago,  if  a  young  "samurai"  had 
purchased  a  new  sword  and  wished  to  try  the  edge,  he 
needed  only  to  go  out  into  the  country  and  find  a  man 
of  the  lowest  caste  and  cut  off  his  head.  This  was 
called  "Tameshi-giri,"  and  was  frequently  practiced. 
The  idea  of  the  value  of  every  human  being  came  in 
with  our  Christian  civilization,  and  today  the  life  of 
every  man  is  protected  by  the  law. 

Up  to  the  year  1899  a  father  could  sell  his  daughter 
into  a  life  of  shame  and  if  she  tried  to  escape  from  the 


172       MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

brothel  the  police  would  bring  her  back.  In  that  year 
an  American  missionary  successfully  appealed  to  the 
new  ideas  of  the  right  of  personal  liberty  and  of  the 
dignity  of  women,  embodied  in  the  revised  statutes  of 
Japan,  and  now  it  is  impossible  to  bind  a  young  woman 
legally  to  a  life  of  sin. 

Sad  as  is  the  loss  of  Korean  nationality  from  the 
standpoint  of  national  feeling,  there  is  no  doubt  that 
the  common  people  of  Korea  are  better  off  than  they 
were  under  their  own  rulers.  When  I  passed  through 
that  country  last  spring  one  of  the  missionaries,  who 
was  not  particularly  friendly  to  Japan,  said  that  the 
terrible  tales  of  injustice  suffered  by  the  common  peo- 
ple at  the  hands  of  their  own  Korean  tax  collectors 
were  no  longer  heard.  Farmers  in  Korea  are  not  now 
afraid  to  make  a  little  money,  for  there  are  no  greedy 
officials  waiting  to  rob  them  of  it. 

Let  me  call  your  attention  also  to  the  channel 
through  which  these  new  ideas  are  coming  into  the  Far 
East.  If  we  compare  these  ideas  themselves  to  the 
water  which  irrigates  a  desert,  transforming  it  from 
a  scene  of  barrenness  and  desolation  into  one  of  fertil- 
ity and  beauty,  what  shall  we  liken  to  the  aqueduct, 
through  which  the  water  is  conveyed  ?  This  is  nothing 
else  than  language,  for  ideas  are  carried  through  writ- 
ten and  spoken  words.  In  two  ways  it  may  be  said 
that  God  has  given  and  is  giving  a  new  language  to  the 
Far  East.  In  the  first  place  by  giving  them  a  new 
learned  language.  In  the  old  order  of  things  the 
classic  language  of  China  was  the  common  language 
of  educated  men  in  the  Far  East.     In  the  new  order 


WHAT  GOD  IS  DOING  173 

of  affairs  it  is  English.  More  than  one  hundred  thou- 
sand young  men  in  Japan  are  studying  the  EngHsh 
language  as  the  chief  thing  in  their  education.  Last 
spring  an  item  appeared  in  the  papers  that  was  hardly 
noticed  by  the  press,  but  that  was  really  of  the  highest 
significance.  It  was  that  by  Imperial  Edict  the  gov- 
ernment of  China  had  ordered  that  henceforth  all 
schools  of  middle  and  higher  grade  should  teach  En- 
glish. This  is  beyond  question  the  greatest  event  in 
the  history  of  the  English  language. 

To  make  the  significance  of  such  an  order  clear  let 
us  suppose  for  a  moment  that  the  language  chosen 
had  been  Portuguese.  In  that  case  a  great  many  Por- 
tuguese teachers  would  have  to  be  sent  for  to  come 
and  teach  that  tongue,  and  the  natural  result  would  be 
that  along  with  the  Portuguese  words,  the  educated 
Chinese  would  get  their  heads  filled  with  Portuguese 
ideas,  and  that  they  would  presently  understand  and 
sympathize  with  Portugal  better  than  with  any  other 
nation.  Precisely  the  same  result  has  been  worked 
out  in  Japan  and  will  be  the  result  in  Korea  and 
China  within  another  thirty  or  forty  years,  only  the 
language,  instead  of  being  Catholic  Portuguese  is 
Protestant  English.  No  man  can  pretend  to  any 
standing  as  a  scholar  in  the  Far  East  of  the  future  who 
is  ignorant  of  the  English  language.  Even  now  it  is 
no  uncommon,  as  it  is  certainly  a  most  significant  ex- 
perience, to  see  an  educated  Chinaman  and  an  edu- 
cated Japanese  conversing  together  on  the  deck  of  a 
steamer — in  the  English  language. 

There  is,  however,  another  and  still  more  signifi- 


174        MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

cant  side  to  this  language  problem.  It  is  the  effect 
which  this  incoming  of  the  English  language  with  its 
Christian  ideas  has  upon  the  native  tongues.  Nothing 
is  more  striking  than  the  great  change  which  the  Jap- 
anese language  has  undergone  since  the  introduction  of 
Western  thought.  It  is  not  only  that  there  have  come 
into  use  a  great  many  words  that  were  unknown  be- 
fore, such  as  "duty,"  "rights,"  "responsibility,"  etc., 
but  that  the  old  words  have  their  meanings  greatly  en- 
larged. For  example,  take  the  Japanese  word  mean- 
ing Qod,  "Kami,"  or  the  one  meaning  love,  "ai."  These 
words,  in  the  old  Japan,  had  very  much  lower  mean- 
ings than  we  associate  with  the  words.  "Kami"  did 
not,  by  any  means,  mean  the  infinite  and  only  creator, 
but  at  most  one  of  the  deceased  emperors.  But  the 
word  God  had  to  be  translated  in  the  classroom  and 
explained  to  the  students.  There  was  no  other  word 
to  use  but  "Kami,"  but  after  the  explanation  of  that 
word  it  no  longer  meant  what  it  had  meant  formerly, 
it  was  remembered  as  the  rendering  of  the  English 
word  "God,"  and  carried  all  the  meaning  that  the  En- 
glish word  possesses.  So  the  old  word  "Kami"  is 
really  a  new  word,  or  rather  a  word  new  born,  for 
there  is  a  second  birth  of  words  as  well  as  of  men.  So 
it  is  with  the  word,  "ai,"  love,  and  so  it  is  with  a  large 
number  of  words.  Between  the  new  words  that  have 
been  introduced  and  the  old  words  that  have  new 
meanings,  it  is  said  by  the  Japanese  that  a  well  edu- 
cated man  of  fifty  years  ago  would  be  quite  unable  to 
understand  the  language  that  is  spoken  in  educated 
circles  to-day. 


WHAT  GOD  IS  DOING  175 

The  result  is  that  God  is  practically  making  the  na- 
tions of  the  world  of  one  language  and  one  speech. 
The  sound  of  the  words  and  the  construction  of  the 
sentences  may  be  different,  but  that  is  of  little  impor- 
tance if  only  the  ideas  are  the  same.  One  man  may 
say  "Kami"  and  another  "God;"  let  them;  it  is  no 
matter,  so  long  as  they  mean  the  same  thing.  So  what 
we  see  in  the  Far  East  to-day  is  really  the  reversal  in 
the  profoundest  sense  of  the  miracle  of  Babel.  God  is 
removing  the  barriers  that  separated  the  nations  and  is 
making  them  again  and  in  reality  of  one  blood.  St. 
Paul  tells  us  that  Christ  broke  down  the  middle  wall 
of  partition  between  Jew  and  Gentile,  for  to  make  of 
the  twain  in  himself  one  new  man,  that  is,  one  new 
humanity.  That  is  exactly  what  he  is  doing  today  in 
the  Far  East— breaking  down  the  middle  wall  of  parti- 
tion between  the  East  and  the  West,  for  to  make  of 
the  twain  in  Himself  one  new  humanity.  Oh,  the  won- 
der of  it,  that  this  great  divine  process  is  going  on  be- 
fore our  eyes,  and  that  we  may  look  upon  it ! 

There  is  yet  a  greater  thing !  We  have  compared  the 
old  Far  East  to  a  barren  desert  and  the  new  language 
to  God's  aqueduct,  flooding  that  barren  soil  with  the 
fertilizing  ideas  of  a  Christian  civilization.  One  more 
thing  is  required,  and  that  is  good  seed,  for  neither  in 
soil  nor  in  water  is  there  life,  they  only  supply  the 
conditions  under  which  the  life  can  develop.  What 
is  the  seed  ? 

The  good  seed  are  the  children  of  the  kingdom! 
The  word  of  God,  yet  not  that  word  abstractly,  but 
as  embodied  in  consecrated  lives,  as  proclaimed  by 


176        MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

sanctified  lives,  and  as  perpetuated  in  divine  institu- 
tions— this  is  the  seed  from  which  the  harvest  of  God 
is  to  spring.  We  may,  therefore,  fitly  compare  the 
work  of  God  in  the  Far  East  to  that  of  a  husbandman. 
He  has  broken  up  the  hard  surface  of  the  soil  by 
mighty  political  upheavals,  and  by  the  sharp  plow- 
shares of  war  and  revolution ;  He  has  watered  it  by  a 
flood  of  new  ideas,  and  He  finally  casts  into  the  field 
thus  prepared  the  seed  of  the  missionary  work. 

This  work  was  begun  in  the  Far  East  more  than 
a  hundred  years  ago,  for  the  work  of  Robert  Morri- 
son, in  1807,  is  generally  accepted  as  the  beginning  of 
the  Protestant  missionary  work  in  that  land,  but  all 
the  remarkable  developments  have  taken  place  in  the 
period  we  have  undertaken  to  review,  and,  indeed,  in 
the  latter  part  of  this  period.  Missionary  work  in 
Japan  began  in  1859,  but  here  also,  little  was  to  be 
seen  of  any  result  for  many  years.  In  1870  there  were 
not  Japanese  Christians  enough  to  count.  In  1880 
there  were  three  thousand.  Ten  years  later  there  were 
thirty  thousand,  and  the  number  of  converts  in  Japan 
was  about  the  same  as  in  China,  where  the  missionary 
work  had  been  going  on  for  eighty  years.  Then  began 
the  period  of  slower  growth  in  Japan,  while  that  in 
China  was  accelerated  by  the  events  that  followed  the 
war  between  Japan  and  China.  In  the  meantime  the 
gospel  had  entered  Korea,  and  was  winning  its  way 
with  truly  wonderful  strides.  The  work  was  begun  in 
1884.  In  the  reports  of  the  great  missionary  confer- 
ence in  London  in  1888  that  country  is  hardly  men- 


WHAT  GOD  IS  DOING  177 

tioned.    To-day  it  is  one  of  the  most  wonderful  works 
of  God  anywhere  to  be  found. 

According  to  the  figures  of  the  Edinburgh  Confer- 
ence, there  are  now  in  Japan  and  Formosa  in  round 
numbers  67,000  Communicant  Christians,  in  Korea 
57,000  and  in  China  177,000,  making  a  total  of  over 
three  hundred  thousand  souls,  representing  a  Chris- 
tian community  of  at  least  one  million.  To  show  you 
how  rapidly  this  whole  work  of  God  has  gone  forward 
in  the  last  years,  let  me  remind  you  that  in  the  year 
1886,  there  were  no  Christians  at  all  in  Korea,  and  in 
the  whole  of  the  Far  East  there  were  only  fifty  thou- 
sand, less  than  one-sixth  of  the  number  now.  The  in- 
crease in  twenty-five  years  has  been  six  hundred  per 
cent.  Oh,  if  we  could  only  enter  into  the  spiritual 
realities  back  of  these  figures,  and  could  count  the  sins 
forgiven,  the  lives  changed,  the  hearts  sanctified,  the 
consecrated  service  rendered,  the  tears  dried,  the 
homes  made  happy,  the  idols  abandoned,  the  chains  of 
superstition  cast  off,  the  dying  sustained,  the  bereaved 
comforted  and  the  redeemed  welcomed  by  the  angels 
into  the  communion  of  the  spirits  of  the  just  made 
perfect,  how  would  then  the  exceeding  greatness  of 
the  work  of  God  in  the  Far  East  appear  to  us,  and 
with  what  grateful  hearts  should  we  join  in  the  joy 
there  is  in  the  presence  of  the  angels  over  so  many  that 
have  repented  and  returned  to  the  Father's  house ! 

But  there  is  something  further  to  notice  than  the 

number  of  souls  redeemed,  and  something  even  more 

important  than  this,  for  as  the  body  is  more  than  the 

members,  so  is  the  establishment  of    the    Christian 

12 


178        MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

Church  a  greater  event  than  any  number  of  individual 
conversions.  If  we  look  at  the  matter  in  that  light,  the 
events  of  the  transformation  of  the  Far  East  appear  of 
the  highest  historic  importance.  It  is  characteristic  of 
the  kingdom  of  God  that  the  events  connected  with  its 
history  invariably  fail  to  attract  the  attention  of  the 
world  when  they  occur,  and  with  equal  regularity  are 
seen  to  have  been  the  most  significant  and  important 
events  of  the  age,  when  the  final  verdict  of  history  is 
made  up. 

Just  as  now  the  public  men  of  the  world  pay  little 
attention  to  the  feeble  efforts  of  a  few  fanatics  to  in- 
troduce their  exploded  superstitions  into  the  ancient 
nations  of  the  Far  East,  so  the  learned  men  of  Greece 
and  Rome  either  were  entirely  ignorant  of  the  begin- 
nings of  Christianity  in  those  countries,  or  considered 
the  matter  as  beneath  their  notice ;  yet  who  that  has  a 
particle  of  the  historic  spirit  would  not  love  to  get  an 
inside  view  of  the  beginnings  of  a  movement  so  mighty 
and  would  not  cherish  above  all  else  the  privilege  of 
having  had  a  share  in  it?  It  is  the  peculiar  privilege 
of  our  generation  that  it  has  spread  out  before  it  the 
beginnings  of  the  Christian  Church  in  Asia,  beginnings 
of  a  future  certain  to  be  not  less  significant  than  that 
which  developed  in  Europe,  and  conducted  so  far  as 
we  now  can  judge,  on  a  far  grander  scale. 

The  church  as  a  body  with  independent  and  self- 
sustaining  life,  has  attained  a  higher  degree  of  devel- 
opment in  Japan  than  in  either  China  or  Korea.  In 
Japan  we  really  have  already  a  self-governing,  self- 
sustaining,  self-propagating  church,  one  that  is  grow- 


WHAT  GOD  IS  DOING  179 

ing  from  its  own  root,  a  tree  bearing  fruit,  whose  seed 
is  in  itself.     When  I  started  from  Japan  I  left  the 
country  on  April  28th,  but  not  till  several  days  later 
did  I  pass  beyond  the  borders  of  the  Japanese  church, 
for  in  Fusan,  Seoul,  Pyeng  Yang  and  Antung  I  found 
Christian  churches  for  the  Japanese.     Besides  those 
I  saw,  they  were  to  be  found  in  Peking  and  Port 
Arthur,  and  Dalny  and  Tientsin,  and  Shanghai,  and 
other  ports  of  China.     Finally,  when  I  was  bidding 
farewell  to  the  brethren  at  Antung  they  told  me  they 
had  telegraphed  to  the  brethren  further  along  the  line 
of  the  railway  to  meet  us  at  the  station,  and  really,  the 
next  day,  in  the  very  heart  of  the  Manchurian  moun- 
tains a  few  brethren  came  to  the  station  to  meet  us, 
entirely  unknown  to  us,  as  we  were  to  them,  either  by 
personal  acquaintance  or  by  reputation,  but  bound  to- 
gether by  the  common  faith  and  the  loving  fellowship 
of  the  redeemed  in  Christ.    To  me,  this  constant  pres- 
ence of  the  Christian  church  wherever  a  little  group 
of  Japanese  were  settled,  was  the  most  significant  and 
cheering  thing  I  had  seen  for  years,  for  so  far  as  I 
knew  not  in  a  single  case  had  the  church  in  any  such 
place  been  started  with  American  money  or  by  the 
work  of  American  missionaries. 

The  Korean  church,  as  an  organization  is  not  so  well 
developed  as  the  one  in  Japan,  but  far  excels  it  in  the 
vigor  and  fervor  and  zeal  of  its  young  life.  It  is 
easy  to  get  an  exaggerated  idea  of  its  progress.  It  is 
not  true  to  say  that  well-nigh  the  entire  population 
has  come  under  the  influence  of  the  gospel,  for  the 
communicants  number  only  one  in  263  of  the  popula- 


i8o       MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

tion,  and  even  with  a  generous  calculation  hardly  more 
than  one  million  of  the  fifteen  millions  in  that  land  can 
be  considered  as  in  any  sense  under  the  influence  of 
the  church.  Nevertheless,  there  is  no  more  inspiring 
sight  than  to  attend  the  services  in  a  Korean  church 
and  to  see  a  thousand  or  more  gathered  to  worship 
God.  The  growth  of  the  church  in  Korea  is  certainly 
one  of  the  miracles  of  missions. 

I  am  not  personally  acquainted  with  the  church  in 
China,  but  its  history  during  the  past  years,  especially 
since  the  Boxer  troubles,  when  the  church  in  North 
China  received  its  baptism  of  fire,  is  not  less  marvel- 
lous than  that  of  Korea.  In  Manchuria,  in  Foochow, 
in  Central  China,  and  in  other  places  there  have  been 
outpourings  of  the  Holy  Spirit  as  notable  as  many  of 
the  famous  passages  in  the  history  of  the  early  church. 
If  the  blood  of  the  martyrs  is  the  seed  of  the  church, 
then  a  more  abundant  harvest  is  to  be  expected  in 
China  than  in  Japan  or  Korea,  for  the  Chinese  church 
alone  in  the  Far  East  has  been  called  upon  to  seal  its 
confession  with  the  blood  of  its  noblest  sons. 


I  have  tried  to  tell  you  something  of  the  things  God 
is  doing  in  the  Far  East,  but  as  I  come  to  the  end  of 
my  address  I  am  oppressed  by  a  sense  of  failure.  To 
some  extent  I  am  able  to  feel  the  greatness  and  the 
passion  of  it  myself,  for  I  have  spent  nearly  twenty 
years  in  that  section  of  the  world,  and  every  one  of 
these  years  has  unfolded  its  own  page  in  the  wonder- 
ful panorama  of  the  history  that  is  making  there,  but 


WHAT  GOD  IS  DOING  i8i 

how  should  I  be  able  to  communicate  this  vision  to 
you,  who  have  only  the  hearing  of  the  ear  ? 

As  I  look  back  over  the  great  historic  crises  of  the 
past;  over  the  rise  of  ancient  empires  in  Egypt,  Baby- 
lonia and  Assyria;  over  the  great  Aryan  migrations 
that  peopled  Europe;  over  the  wars  of  Alexander  and 
the  rise  of  the  Roman  Empire;  over  the  Christianiza- 
tion  of  Europe  or  the  great  days  of  the  Crusades ;  over 
the  Reformation,  the  Renaissance,  or  the  discovery  of 
America;  over  the  founding  of  our  own  great  Re- 
public or  the  onward  march  of  freedom  and  light  in 
Europe  in  the  nineteenth  century,  nowhere  do  I  dis- 
cover an  epoch— barring  only  the  days  of  our  Lord 
and  His  apostles—when  the  movement  of  History  was 
on  so  grand  a  scale  or  was  pregnant  with  greater  pos- 
sibilities of  good  to  the  future  of  the  race. 

Oh,  when  I  think  of  these  things  I  wonder  that 
young  men  can  bear  to  stay  at  home;  that  they  do  not 
hear  the  bugles  of  the  Lord  sounding  the  charge  or  see 
the  hands  of  the  Future  beckoning  to  them  to  come 
and  have  a  share  in  such  a  work  at  such  a  time !  I 
wonder  that  the  whole  church  is  not  singing  with  a 
throbbing  heart: 
Mine  eyes  have  seen  the  glory  of  the  coming  of  the 

Lord, 
Be  swift  to  answer  Him,  my  soul — 
Be  jubilant,  my  feet ! 

Let  me  close  by  quoting  the  words  of  Robert  E. 
Speen^'No  history  has  even  been  greater  than  that 
which  is  making  now.  Our  times  are  prosaic  only  to 
men  of  prosaic  minds.    The  romance  that  hangs  over 


i82       MISSION  PROBLEMS  IN  JAPAN 

Cyrus  and  Darius  and  Artaxerxes,  ovir  Jenghis  Kahn 
and  his  sons,  over  Saracen  Mogul  and  Sikh — is  as  the 
play  of  children  beside  the  stern  struggle  of  our  own 
day  in  Asia.  Systems  of  thought  and  morals  and  so- 
cial customs  which  were  old  before  we  were  peoples, 
and  which  had  set  themselves  never  to  be  moved,  have 
been  challenged  and  shaken.  Commerce,  Diplomacy, 
Civilization,  have  violated  their  repose.  Righteousness 
has  demanded  a  reckoning  of  them.  And  Christian- 
ity, of  which  these  are  the  children,  is  calmly  con- 
fronting them  from  foundations  which  cannot  be 
moved,  while  new  foundations  are  laid  for  her  on  their 
enlarging  ruins.  It  is  a  privilege  to  live  with  open 
eyes  in  the  age  of  such  a  conflict,  to  hear  the  tumult  of 
the  chariots  and  the  horsemen,  and  to  discern  in  all 
the  master  hand  of  God." 


INDEX 


Accessibility,   35 

Activity  "ad  Intra"  and  "ad  ex- 
tra," 10,  11 

Advertising,  Metliod  in  Evange- 
listic Work,   133 

"Affiliation  Plan,"  115 

Agnosticism  in  Japanese  Schools, 
54,   55 

Agricultural  Classes  Unreached, 
120 

American  Board  A.  B.  C.  F.  M., 
71 

Amida,  Buddhist  Teaching  of, 
42 

Amoy  Mission,  R.   C.  A.,   Ill 

Ancestor  Worship,   38 

Anderson,  Dr.  Rufus,  View  of 
Purpose  of  Missions,  12 

Aoyama  Gakakuin,  155 

Apostles'  Creed,  75,  162 

Appeals  Against  Action  of  Mis- 
sion,  86 

Area  of  Japan,   32 

Artisan  Classes,  120 

Authors,  Japanese,  Educated  In 
Mission  Schools,   149 


Ballagh,  Rev.  James  B.,  69 

Baptisms,  Administered  by  Mis- 
sionaries, 109 

Bible  Classes  as  Method  of  Evan- 
gelistic Work,   130 

Bible  Distribution,   68 

Board  of  Missions,  Church  of 
Christ  in  Japan,  See  "Den- 
do  Kyoku,"  — 

Boards  in  America,  96,  97,  98,  99, 
100,  102 


Brown,  Dr.  A.  J.,  100,  103 
Brown,  Dr.  S.  R.,   138,  148,  156 
Buddhism,  38,   40,  41,  42,   52 
"Bungokkai"  Magazine,  149 
Bushido,   General   Discussion  of, 
46 


Calculations  of  Time  and  Forces 
Required  for  Evangelization, 
24 

Canons  of  Dort,  70 

Catechetical  Instruction,  80 

Ceremonies,  Buddhist,  43 

Chamberlain,  Prof.  B.  H.,  43 

Chastity  in  Japan,  50 

China,  164,  165,  168,  169,  170, 
180 

Chlnzei  Gakuin,  Conversions  in, 
151 

Christians,  Statistics  of,  60 

Christian  Education,  134-163 

Christianization,  28,  29 

Christian  Church,  Historical  Im- 
portance, in  Far  East,   176 

Christianity,   166 

Christian  University,  160 

Church  Attendance,   80 

Church  Discipline,  81 

Church  Establishment  Theory, 
12-19 

Church,  First  Protestant,  59,  69 

Churches,  Native,  13,  19,  21,  27, 
58,   60 

Church  of  Christ  in  Japan,  14, 
19,  65,  69,  72,  75,  79,  90.  93 

Church  Sustentatlon,   11 

Church  Union,   70-72 

Church  Universal,  "ad  Intra"  and 
"ad  extra,"  8 


i84 


INDEX 


Civilization,  11,   33 

Cleveland  Student  Volunteer 
Convention,    26 

Colleges,  Christian,  158-160 

Competitive  Examination,  Why 
Held,    140 

Concubinage,  35,  50,  81 

Conditons,   General,   32 

Conduct,  Moral,  of  Japanese,  48 

Confucianism,  General  Discus- 
sion of,  38,  46,  48 

Confucius,  Influence  in  the  "Far 
East,"    164 

Congregational  Church,  (see  Ku- 
miai  Church) 

Conscription,  Military,  139 

Constitution  of  Japan,  1889,   168 

Conversion  of  Entire  Population, 
10 

Converts  in  Mission  Schools,  151 

Cooperation  Between  Church  of 
Christ  in  Japan  and  Presby- 
terian and  Reformed  Church- 
es, 90-101,  113-116,  124 

Council  of  Missions,  18,  64,  70, 
90-94,    98,    111 

Creed,  Apostles,  162 

Cumberland  Presbtyerian  Mis- 
sion, 71,  78 

Customs,  National,  Not  Mission- 
ary Purpose  to  Alter,   11 


Davis,  Dr.  J.  D.,  138 

DeForest,  Dr.  J.  F.,  Quoted,  153 

Dendo  Kyoku,  (Board  of  Mis- 
sions Church  of  Christ  in 
Japan),  90,  92,  93,  131 

Destitution,  Spiritual,  of  Japan, 
119-120 

Dialects,  in  Japan,  32 

Discipline,  Ecclesiastical,   81 

Divorce,   50,    81 

Domestic  Missions,  Scientific 
Definition  of,  11 


Donker-Curtius,  Dutch  Envoy  to 

Japan,    166 
Doshisha,    138,    151,    154-155 

E 

Ebina,  Rev.  D.,   153 

Ecclesia  Constituenda,  Church 
Government  in,   87 

Edinburgh  Conference,  Union 
Spirit   in,    161 

Education,  Not  the  Purpose  of 
Missionary  Work,  11 

Education  Christian,  See  Chris- 
tion  Education 

Education,  Japanese  Govern- 
ment. (See  also  Govern- 
ment Schools),  48-50,  54-55, 
140,    158,    167 

Emperor  of  Japan,  Performs 
Ceremony  of  Purification,  39 

English  Language,  148,  172-173 

English  Presbyterian  Church, 
Confession  of,   78 

Ethnic  Religions,   11,  46 

Evangelical  Alliance,   67 

Evangelical  Protestant  Mission- 
ary  Society,   65 

Evangelistic  Work,  Method  Used 
in,   129 

Evangelists,  Native,  109,  116,  126 

"Evangelization  of  the  World  in 
this  Generation,"  21-26 

Evangelization  Theory  of  Mis- 
sions,   Stated,    12-21 

Examinations,  Competitive,  Why 
Held,  140 


Falsehood,  49 
Family,   36 
Family  Worship,  80 
Farmers,  Japanese,  35 
Far   East,    164-177 
Financial    Help,    Not    What    Is 
Most  Needed,  121 


INDEX 


185 


Forces  Required  for  Evangeliza- 
tion, No  Calculation  Possi- 
ble, 24 

Formosa,  Work  of  Japanese 
Church   in,    19 

Fornication,   50 

Forward  Movement,  1872-1889, 
59-61,    67 

Fulton,  Dr.  Geo.  W.,  Argument 
on   "Co-operation,"   103 


Geisha,    51 

General  Condition,  32 

German    Reformed    Mission,    71, 

101 
German  Missionaries,  64 
Government  Schools,  139-142 
Greene,  Dr.  D.  C,  138 
Gulick,  Rev.  Oramel  H.,  72 
Gulick,  Rev.  Sidney  L.,  72 


Heaven,  Buddhist  Conception  of, 
41 

Heidelberg   Catechism,    70 

Hell,  Buddhist  Conception  of,  41 

Helpers,  Native,  Large  Numbers 
Required,    24-25 

Hepburn,  Dr.  J,  C,  33,  59,  138 

Heresy,   Comparatively  Rare,   81 

Higher  Criticism,   65 

Hindrances  to  Gospel  in  Japan, 
50-51 

Hi  rata,  Mr.,  One  of  the  Found- 
ers of  the  "Bungokkai,"  149 

Hollanders,  Special  Privileges  in 
Japan,  165 

Honda,  Bishop,   153 

House,  According  to  Civil  Code, 
36 

Hymnology,  68,  155 

Hymns,  Shinto,  38 


Ibuka,  Dr.  K.,  98,  114,  153 

Ideas,  44,  148,  169-173 

Idols,  38-41 

Imbrie,  Dr.  William,  74,  75,  76, 
98,  132 

Immortality  of  the  Soul,  38 

Incense  in  BuddWst  Ceremonies, 
43 

Independence  of  Native  Churches, 
59,  111,  125 

Industrial  Conditions,  34-35 

Insincerity,  in  Japan,  49 

Intelligence,   Popular,   33,   54 

Instruction  of  Minister  of  Edu- 
cation,  1899,   141 

Itinerating  in  Evangelistic  Work, 
129-130 


Japan,  32,  34,   164-166 
Japan  Mail,  Quotation  from,  50 
Japanese  Language,   33,   174 
Japanese  People,  33,  128 
Journalism,  Christian,  81,  154 
Journalism,  Secular,  149 


K 


Kargan  Church,  Yokohama,  69 

Kindergartens,   136 

Knox,   Dr.  Geo.  W.,  Quoted,   14 

Korea,   19,   45,   51,   164,   172,   177 

Kumato  Band,  Influence  of,  153 

Kume,  Prof,  43 

Kumiai ( Congregational  Church), 

71.    153 
Kwansei  Gakuin,  151,  155 


Language,   172-173 
Language,  Chinese,   164 
Language,  English,  61,  173 


i86 


INDEX 


Language,  Japanese,  33,  122,  174 
Lawrence,    Dr.    E.    A.,    View    of 

Purpose  of  Missions,  13,  14 
Laws,  Japanese,  Revised  in  1899, 

171-172 
Laymen's  Missionary  Movement, 

21,   24 
Liberty,  Religious,  in  Japan,  37, 

60,  165-167 
Literature,  New  Japanese,  149 
Literature,  Christian,   68,   81 
Lloyd,  Rev.  Arthur,  Quoted,   42 
Lying,   Prevalence  of,   in  Japan, 

49 


M 


Magazines,  Influence  of  Chris- 
tian Education  Upon,  149 

Magic  Lantern,  Use  in  Evan- 
gelistic Work,  130 

Manchuria,  Japanese  Churches 
and  Work  in,  19,  179 

Mancius,  Teachings  of,  46 

Marriage  in  Japan,  35 

Matthew,  Gospel  of.  Translated, 
60 

Medical  Relief,  Not  the  Purpose 
of  Missionary  Work,  11 

Meiji  Gakuin,  138,  155,  156 

Merchant  Class,  as  Yet  Un- 
reached,  120 

Methods  of  Operation  In  Evan- 
gelistic Work,   129 

Military  Conscription,  Students 
Exempt,  139 

Milton,  Quotation  from.  Applied 
to  Japanese  People,  57 

Ministers,   Native,    85,    126-127 

Missionaries,  10,  85,  86.  88,  124, 
126,  109 

Missionary  Work,  10,  132,  126, 
177 

Mission  Organization,  84,  86,  90 

Miyagawa,   Rev.,    153 


Modem    Missions    in    the    East, 
Dr.  E.  A.  Lawrence  Quoted, 
13 
Momoyama  Chu  Gakko,  Conver- 
sions in,   151 
Morality  in  Japan,   11,   46-52,  80 
Morrison,  Dr.  Robert,   176 
Mosaic  Code,  Parallels  in  Shinto, 

39 
Motoda,  Rev.,  153 
Mott,  Dr.  John  R.,  21,  26 


N 


National  Spirit  of  Japanese,  112 

Native  Church,  18,  121 

Naturalism,   55 

Nature  Worship,   38 

Nemoto,  Mr.  S.,  155 

Netherlands,  Churches  in,  Meth- 
od of  Appointing  Mission- 
aries, 86 

Nihon  Hyoron,  149 

Neeshima,  Dr.  Joseph,   72,   138 

Niwa,  Mr.,  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  Work- 
er, 154 

North  Japan  Mission,  R.  C.  A., 
84.  101-102 


Olta  Ken,  Extent  and  Christian 
Forces  of,  132 

Onishi,  Dr.,  Noted  Author,  149 

Opium,  Determination  of  Japa- 
nese Government  to  Exclude, 
167 

Organization  of  First  Protestant 
Church,  60 

Orthodoxy  in  Japan,   162 


Pantheism,  45 

Perry,    Commodore,    Expedition, 
166 


INDEX 


187 


Personality  of  God,  45 
Philanthropy,     Not    Purpose    of 

Missionary  Work,   11 
Political  Conditions,  37 
Polytheism,  45 
Population,  Increase  of,   68 
Prayer-meetings,  Attendance,   80 
Prayers,  Shinto,  38 
Preachers,  Native,  in  Employ  of 

Missions,  110-111 
Preaching  of  Japanese,  81 
Preparation   for   the  Gospel,    37- 

45 
Presbyterian  Churches,  70 
Presbyterian      Mission,       North, 

101-102 
Presbyterian  Mission,  South,  102 
Prostitution,  51,  171 
Protestantism   In  Japan  a  Class 

Movement,   120 


Rationalistic  Tendencies,  161-162 
Reaction  of   1890,   65-66 
Reformed     Church    in    America, 
(Dutch  Reformed),   84,   102, 
69,  70 
Reformed      Church      in      United 
States,  (German  Reformed), 
71,   101 
Religion,   50,    134 
Religious  Conditions,  37 
Religious   Liberty   in   Japan,    37, 

60,    165,   166 
Rescript  on  Education,  65 
Responsibility,    Sense    of.    Weak 
Among  Japanese,  and  Why, 
48 
Restoration  of  1868,  167 
Revivals,  1872  to  1889,  1900,  61- 

68 
Rikkyo  Dal  Gakko,   Higher  De- 
partment of,  160 
Ritter,  Dr.  Julius,  Quoted,  62 
Russia,  Effect  of  War  With,  95 


Sabbath  Observance  In  Japan,  80 
Sacrifices,  Shinto,  38-39 
Salvation  Army,  131,  155 
Salvation,  Buddhist  Way  of    41- 

42 
Samurai,  61,  171 
Satsuma   Dialect,   33 
Scepticism,   54 

Schools,    Christian,    See    "Chris- 
tian Education," 
Schools,   Government,   See  "Gov- 
ernment Schools" 
Science,  Relation  to  Religion,  134 
Self-Abuse,  50 
Self-government         of         Native 

Church,  13,  22,  112 
Self-support  of  Native  Churches 

68,   81,   97,   111,   113,   114 
Sense  of  Sin,  Weak  Among  Jap- 
anese,  44 
Sexual  Impurity,  50 
Shimasaki,  Mr.  T.,  149 
"Shinjin"   Magazine,    154 
Shinshu,  Sect  of  Buddhism,  42 
Shinto,    General    Discussion    of, 

38-41,  52 
Sin,  39,  44 
Shoguns,     Driven    from    Power 

167 
Sincerity,  Among  Japanese,  49 
Sodomy,   50 
Soul,  Belief  In  its  Existence  and 

Immortality,    38 
Southern    Presbyterian    Mission, 

71,    102 
South  Japan  Mission,   R    C.   A. 

71,    101 
Speer,  Dr.  R.  E.,  28,   83,   96,  97, 

181 
Spiritual    Destitution    of    Japan, 

119,   120 
Spiritual  Life  of  Japanese  Chris- 
tians, 80-82 
Stages  in  Missionary  Work,  28 


i88 


INDEX 


standards  of  Morality,  Japanese, 

48-49 
Statistics,  General,  for  1910,   60, 

65-66,   68,   69,   119-120,   177 
Steel  Academy,   142 
Stereopticon,  Use  in  Evangelistic 

Work,  130 
Suicide  of  Fujimura  Misao,  55 
Sunday  Observance,  80 
Sunday  School,  Buddhist,  43 
Sunday  School  Work,  68,  80,  155 
Superstition,   44 
Supervision,    109 
Synod    of    Church    of    Christ    in 

Japan,   98,   115-116 


Tameshi-giri,    171 

Tamura,  Rev.  Naomi,  153 

Taro,  Mr.  Ando,  155 

Temperance  Movement,   155 

Thompson,  Dr.  David,  69 

Togawa,  Mr.,  149 

Tohoku  Gakuin,   Conversions  In. 

142,   151 
Tokutomi,  Mr.  Kenjiro,  Novelist, 

149 
Tokutomi,    Mr.    T.,    Pounder    of 

"Kokumin  no  Tomo,"  149 
Tokyo,  Presbytery  of,  115 
Translation   of    Holy    Scriptures, 

60 
Truth,  Undervalued  by  Japanese, 

49 


Uemura,   Rev.  M.,   149,   153 

Unchastity  In  Japan,  49 

Union  In  Japan,  70,  161-162 

Unitarianism,  64 

United  Church  of  Christ  In  Ja- 
pan,   14-15 

University,  Christian,  In  Japan, 
160 

V 

Verbeck,  Dr.  Guido  P.,  16,  78, 
148,   166 

Venn,  Rev.  Henry,  View  of  Pur- 
pose of  Missionary  Work,  14 

Vices,  Japanese,  49-50 

Village  Life  in  Japan,  32-36 

Virtues,  Japanese,  49 

Volunteer  Movement,   21,   26 
W 

Wars  with  China  and  Russia, 
Effects  of,   168 

Westminster  Confession,  70 

Westminster  Shorter  Catechism, 
70 

Withdrawal  of  Missionaries,  17, 
63,   92 

Woman's  Position  in  Japan,  35 

Wyckoff,  Dr.  M.  N.,  Quoted,  151 
T 

Yamamuro,  Mr.  G.,  Salvation 
Army  Worker,  155 

Young  Men's  Christian  Associa- 
tion, Work  In  Japan,  131, 
155 


